The Guardian
by Starway Man
Summary: YAHF season six style, plus what happens afterwards in order to save the world. COMPLETE
1. Halloween

**Date written: **Sat 29 Nov 2008

**Author:** Starway Man

**Email:** theop at kew dot hotkey dot net dot au

**Crossover:** Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel/Charmed (sort of)

**Pairings: **We'll see.

**Warnings: **There is some violence, angst, and character death in this one.

**Rating: **R

**Main characters: **Xander, ensemble

**Disclaimer:** Anything to do with BtVS or Angel belongs to Joss Whedon and all related entities. Those parts of the story taken from the TV episodes belong to the writers in question. Any and all other references you can recognize (Charmed, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.) belong to their various owners, I can claim ownership of nothing except this fanfic. No profit will be made from this work, so please don't sue me.

**Acknowledgments: **My deepest gratitude to Nodakskip and Greywizard for beta reading services. Thanks, too, to Buffyworld for the transcripts used in the writing of this story.

**Summary: **YAHF season six style, plus what happens afterwards in order to save the world.

**Title:** The Guardian

***

R: "It's Halloween, it's the one time of the year that supernatural threats give it a well-deserved rest. As should you."

B: "Yeah, what about costumes that take over your personality? Or, wee little Irish fear demon-y thingies?"

R: "Yes, well, if anything calamitous should happen, history suggests it'll happen to one of us."

(Rupert Giles and Buffy Summers, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER)

P: "A whitelighter. What exactly is a whitelighter?"

L: "Well, we're really just messengers. Guides. Think of us as guardian angels for good witches."

(Phoebe Halliwell and Leo Wyatt, CHARMED)

"On οί theoί filoΰsin, άpothniskei neos" (Translation: Those whom the gods love, die young)

(Menander, 316 BC)

***

**Part One: Halloween**

**Pyramid-shaped tomb, Blessed Memories Cemetery, Sunnydale**

**October 2****nd****, 2001**

The Guardian of the Slayer line stirred uneasily in her centuries-long sleep.

There had once been a time when this very old woman had been but one of many, but that time was now long past; she was all alone in the world these days, and had been for nearly a thousand years. Like the rest of her extinct sisterhood, the Guardian had hidden out of sight long ago, but she had nonetheless kept watch on this particular Hellmouth in California. And, during the last few years, on the Vampire Slayer whose job it was to prevent it from ever being opened.

The Guardian had also, ever since 1997, nudged certain events along here and there as part of her covert efforts to assist the Chosen One. Nothing dramatic; just subtle pushes that had cascaded into victories against the forces of darkness and evil.

Such as, for example, 247 days ago helping Buffy Summers come to the conclusion that the only way to save the world and her little sister Dawn was to die for the cause by jumping off a tower and shutting down a portal that would have otherwise let Hell, literally, come to Earth. The other Chosen One, Faith Lehane, had thus been brought back into the position of being the one girl in all the world Chosen to fight all the evil things which went bump in the night.

But now, the Guardian had sensed that something unexpected had happened.

There were two Slayers in the world again, at the same time.

Within her resting place, the Guardian's eyes snapped open. This wasn't like the two other times such a thing had occurred; the old woman could literally feel all the mystical forces protecting the Slayer line disrupted – almost torn apart. No doubt, it wouldn't be long before others sensed it as well, and the malevolent ones would try to use this latest development to their own advantage.

The Guardian slowly stood up and climbed out of her sarcophagus, the beginnings of a scowl on her face.

It looked like the time for subtlety was over.

***

**Partytown Costume Shoppe, Sunnydale**

**October 29****th****, 2001**

The young man known as Jonathan Levinson was at a critical junction point in his life.

Nearly two months ago he had joined forces with two other geeks, Andrew Wells and Warren Mears, in order to take over Sunnydale as the first step in their becoming supervillains. The exact circumstances regarding this development were actually rather pathetic, as the trio had decided to carry out their new mission in life whilst playing a board game of some sort. But ever since then, the so-called troika had started targeting the traumatized and returned-from-the-dead Buffy Summers, messing with the blonde Slayer's head as well as testing her supernatural abilities.

The problem was, Jonathan certainly hadn't enjoyed being kicked in the groin by the tanked Chosen One whilst masquerading as a demon with an illusion spell. That was why he had come here, looking for non-magical disguises to use from now on.

"Jonathan? Huh. I wasn't expecting to see you here."

The nerd turned around and grew rather nervous at the sight of Xander Harris, who was walking towards him with a pirate costume in his hands. Jonathan then told himself to relax; the male Slayerette couldn't possibly have any idea of what the troika had been up to lately, so this guy was just greeting an old high school friend.

"Uh, Xander. Hi," Jonathan gave his former classmate an anxious smile.

"Getting a costume for Halloween, right?" Harris was rather puzzled by Levinson's apparent nervousness.

"N-yeah. Yeah, I mean, why, why, why else would I be here?" Jonathan babbled. Then he pointed at the costume Xander was carrying. "You're dressing up as a pirate this year?"

"Yep, yep," Xander smiled. "Got myself an eyepatch and a hook for a hand, I wanna go for the whole bad boy look and fool around a bit afterwards."

"Well, I'm kinda surprised you'd want to do that," Jonathan confessed, finally starting to relax. "I mean, 'cause that was why Larry chose his pirate costume back during junior year, and I-I just figured you simply weren't the same type of guy-"

"I'M NOT!" Xander yelped, recalling that long-dead gay quarterback. Then Harris strove to calm himself down. He knew that Levinson knew the truth about Sunnydale, so he looked around and said quietly, "Jonathan, you remember what actually happened that year, right? That Halloween night four years ago, when everyone turned into their costumes?"

"Do I ever," Jonathan nodded vigorously. "I mean, I know this is Sunnydale 'n all, but you don't easily forget being chased by a bunch of real-life Ewoks because..." The nerd then trailed off. "Uh, why exactly did all that take place? I never did learn details."

Again making sure no one else was within earshot, Xander confided in his short acquaintance how the chaos mage named Ethan Rayne had cursed all his costumes that night, so that everyone got turned into what they had dressed up as – thanks to a spell invoked to the Roman god known as Janus. "So basically, that guy simply made with the mojo – and hey, two years ago I dressed up as James Bond just in case the whole crazy thing happened all over again, but I-"

"So this time if it happens again, you're going to be a pirate?" Jonathan interrupted with his distinctly reedy and nasal voice. The wannabe crime lord shrugged and then noted, "Uh, no offense, but that really doesn't sound like such a great idea to me. 'Cause off-hand, I don't know of any good guy pirates. Do you?"

That gave Xander pause to think, and eventually the two young men went their separate ways – Xander to return his pirate costume and look for something else, and Jonathan to start researching the spell Harris had just told him about.

***

**Mears residence, Sunnydale**

**October 31****st****, 2001**

"That sounds so COOL!"

Both Warren and Jonathan looked at Andrew with deep irritation. "Could you at least lemme finish first, douche bag?" Levinson demanded of his co-conspirator.

"But this is so exciting!!" Wells almost whined. He looked around the basement, which was packed with various odds and ends as well as money that had recently been stolen from a bank by a mercenary demon working for this trio. "I mean, it's totally in keeping with our mission profile!"

Jonathan briefly glanced over to the whiteboard containing a To Do list, which included items such as controlling the weather, miniaturizing Fort Knox, and obtaining workable prototype jet packs. "How do you figure that?"

"It's like Warren said about that M'Fashnik demon recently, the Force can sometimes have great power on the weak-minded. So, so, I wanna be a Jedi Knight. I want to be Obi-wan Kenobi," Andrew started gazing off into the distance, before he held up a cheap plastic toy. "I mean, a real-life lightsabre? I would KILL for one of those!"

Mears started scratching his head. "Gotta admit, Sparky, that does kinda make sense," he finally admitted, before looking at his Halloween costume. "And I wouldn't mind being James Bond for a night either." Warren briefly entertained an adolescent fantasy about what it would be like to be 007, and have his ex-girlfriend Katrina come crawling back to him.

"So, let's set up and do it!" Andrew was almost hopping up and down in glee.

"I don't know, you guys. It's a pretty specialized spell from what I've been able to uncover," Levinson admitted, the least bit doubtfully. "And Janus? Not exactly someone you wanna piss off, if you catch my drift."

"In 'Doctor Who', the Sontarans have a saying: 'the greater the odds, the greater the glory'," Andrew intoned solemnly.

"He's right. Come on, Short Round," Warren placed an arm around Jonathan's shoulders. "I have faith in you. You can do this!"

Against his better judgment, Levinson was convinced to do the spell. He was the only one who could do it, as he was the magical part of the trio; Andrew's specialty was summoning and controlling demons, and Warren was the mechanical genius who could create lifelike robots. So, after consulting his books and parchments, the amateur warlock finally settled down and began to chant in Latin.

"Janus, evoco vestram animam. Exaudi meam causam. Carpe noctem pro consilio vestro. Veni, appare et nobis monstra quod est infinita potestas. Persona se corpum et sanguium commutandum est. Vestra sancta praesentia concrescet viscera. Janus! Sume noctem!" Jonathan shouted.

It was absolutely the worst mistake Mr. Levinson had ever committed, in his short and relatively miserable life.

Had he done more thorough research, Jonathan would have known that Janus did not take kindly to mortals invoking his power for their own petty desires. Four years ago, Ethan had done several propitiatory rituals to honor the god of chaos, and his intentions had been in keeping with the deity's wishes: to invoke disorder and disarray upon the living earth. It didn't matter that Ethan had gotten more than a few people killed that night; as far as Janus had been concerned, the magician's intentions had been neither good nor evil, merely – anarchic. Thus, Rayne had been safe from any possible angry mystical backlash from the Roman god.

Here and now, however, Jonathan wasn't. He had not used a bust of Janus as a focus for the spell. Also, he had not done the spell in order to bring about chaos; rather, his intentions had been completely the opposite – he had specific goals in mind that would advance his companions' and his own agendas. Levinson had foolishly tried to create a state of order that he and his fellow dorks could capitalize upon.

Was it any wonder, therefore, that Jonathan was instantly killed by a very irate and pissed-off Janus?

Warren and Andrew yelped in fear, ducking and raising their hands to shield their eyes as Jonathan's body simply exploded outwards in a rain of blood, bone and flesh. The entire basement suddenly looked and smelled like a blood-drenched slaughterhouse, as the young man died and his remains sprayed everywhere. The contents of the room were suddenly wet and sticky from being showered with all that dark red human blood, not to mention the smelly viscera.

Andrew started screaming like a frightened schoolgirl, looking at where his dead friend had been standing mere moments before. And that was before he saw what he was covered with, head to toe.

"AGGGGHHHHH! AGGGGHHHHH! Get it off! GET IT OFF ME!!!" he bleated.

"SHUT UP!" Warren looked completely freaked as well, but somehow forced himself to calm down as he backhanded Andrew in the face and the nerd stopped yelling, trembling as he did so. "What just happened?"

"I, I don't know," Andrew babbled, still in wide-eyed shock over Jonathan's gruesome and horrible death. "I guess there, there must have been some sort of, um, maybe a, an unforeseen side effect of the spell-"

"So Jonathan screwed up," Warren began to calm down and think things through. "And that Janus guy killed him for it. But we're still alive, right? SO, that means – okay, okay, okay," Mears said, as his brain finally started shifting back into gear. "We should be safe from now on, as long as we never do anything like this again..."

"Safe? Are you seriously spaced out? JONATHAN JUST EXPLODED INTO LITTLE PIECES!!" Andrew yelled hysterically.

Warren hit him again. "You need to calm down, Padawan," he said with the best Alec Guinness impersonation he could manage. "Jonathan knew the risks. And now, at least, he has become one with the Force."

Incredibly enough, the ridiculous platitude actually worked and Wells started to calm down. "Really?"

"Yeah. Just like we will, one day," Warren told him, dropping the British accent and looking around at the ruined basement. ( _Well, thank God there's nothing left to bury at least_. ) "Now look, first thing's first. We need to burn these clothes, and we've got to clean up the basement before my mom comes home from her Halloween party. Okay? Are you with me, Obi-wan?"

"Uh, yeah," Andrew said robotically, moving on autopilot. His mind slowly and carefully starting to blot out the worst parts of the nightmare he had just gone through, in order to protect its sanity.

That particular Sunnydale syndrome did occasionally serve as a useful survival trait, after all.

***

**The Magic Box, Sunnydale**

**A short while earlier**

"Your costume's stupid!" a little kid dressed as a fireman told Xander, who was holding a jar in his hands. "Even my little sister has a better costume than that!"

The young man sighed, resisting the urge to tell the kid go get himself eaten by a vampire. ( _Still, I guess he has a point. Man, this has got to be the last time I ever try to get a matching costume with Anya's!_ )

As Xander walked over to another part of the store, he adjusted the angel halo he had bought back to the right angle on his head. Dawn Summers didn't notice; she just walked up to Xander's girlfriend (and secret fiancée) Anya Jenkins and asked her, "So what are you supposed to be?"

Anya, who was wearing very short candy-striped shorts and a red blouse – not to mention a Farrah Fawcett style hair – replied chirpily, "An angel."

"Oh. Then shouldn't you have wings?" Dawn looked a bit confused, staring in Xander's direction for a moment.

"Oh no, this is a special kind of angel called a Charlie. We don't have wings, we just skate around with perfect hair fighting crime," the former vengeance demon, who was indeed wearing roller skates as she skated around the shop, replied airily. "Besides, Xander's the one doing the whole angel with wings costume this year. Well, sort of."

"Sort of?" Dawn asked, as she followed Anya around.

"Yes. Apparently he dressed up as a fictional TV character known as a whitelighter, a guardian angel for witches," Miss Jenkins replied somewhat dismissively. "I am, however, still feeling completely secure in our relationship."

"Okayyyyy..." Dawn drawled out, not at all sure what her companion meant by that.

"Yes, I don't feel that this is a subtle sign that he will eventually leave me for another woman who happens to be a witch," Anya told the former Key, even though she was certainly starting to develop issues about Harris insisting that their engagement remain secret. "Besides, Xander said he's gonna teach me how to play doctor later on, instead of this game called Shiver Me Timbers..."

At that moment, Willow Rosenberg and Tara Maclay, two gay witches who were also part of Buffy's inner circle of Slayerettes, came over and started talking to Anya and Dawn. Not far away in a corner of the store, Buffy watched them and tried to ignore the vast, sucking emptiness within her that was threatening to drive the young woman completely insane.

The Vampire Slayer had been alive again for almost a month now, and she still hadn't been able to come to grips with her soul being torn out of Heaven by her four well-meaning but idiotically irresponsible friends. Even though she knew this world wasn't Hell, Buffy couldn't help feeling that it was the next best thing and, quite honestly, she was now at her wit's end on what to do about it.

"Buffy?" Rupert Giles asked, coming over to the closest thing he had to a daughter. "Are you all right?"

( _Why do you keep asking me that, damn it?!_ ) Buffy kept a neutral expression on her face though, this wasn't the time or place for a screaming match with her former Watcher. "Yeah. Something I can help you with, Giles?"

"Uh, we need more mandrake root..." Giles caught Buffy's arm as she started to head for the basement. "But I've sent Xander downstairs to get some. You..." he trailed off. "You, you haven't worn clothes like these for some years now, have you?"

Buffy wanted to smile at his British obviousness, but she was feeling so empty and gutted at the moment that the young woman simply couldn't pull it off. "Decided to go a bit retro for tonight," she explained. "Thought it would do for a Halloween costume, y'know." Miss Summers left unmentioned the fact that she had secretly dressed as herself back in junior year, just before her 17th birthday.

The last time she had ever been truly happy in this world.

"Buffy..." Giles started to say, wishing he wasn't wearing this confounded blue wizard outfit. He knew that the Slayer found it difficult to take him seriously even at the best of times, and the facile Halloween costume wasn't helping. "Is there something you want to tell me...?"

"Hey, look over there!" Buffy interrupted, pointing to the main counter. "Lots of customers. A ton of bagging to do."

"Buffy," Giles started to fume on the inside at how his former charge kept dodging his questions like this.

"Hey, Giles? Where's Xander?" Willow came up to the former Watcher as Miss Summers left. "I, I kinda need some help in the charmed objects section."

"He's still not back from the basement? Good Lord, what on earth is that boy doing down there..." Then he squinted at the medallion Miss Rosenberg was wearing around her neck. "Willow, haven't I seen that somewhere before...?"

"This? Oh...oh!" Willow instantly felt guilty, even though she didn't know why. "It was a, um, a gift from Ms. Calendar. You know, before she..."

"Before she died, when Angelus killed her that night. Yes, I know," Giles sighed. "Well, I'll go look for Xander; you get back to what you were doing, alright?"

"Okay." The redhead nodded. Then she held up the medallion, "Um, I'm sorry if this is kinda bringing back bad memories, Giles-"

"No, no, it's fine," Rupert insisted, even though that was a bare-faced lie. "Go on, we mustn't keep the customers waiting."

However, Rupert quickly got distracted from the Xander-hunt by a rather annoyed and dissatisfied customer and sent Dawn over to help Willow. Meanwhile, down in the basement, the construction worker was no closer to finding the mandrake root than he'd been when he'd first started looking.

( _Where the hell is it?_ ) Harris groaned to himself, searching through various boxes. ( _Man, I swear that Giles and Ahn really need to start developing some sorta system down here..._ )

"What the heck are you doin', Droopy Boy?"

The male, British voice almost caused Harris to yelp in astonishment. Whirling around, Xander quickly relaxed when he saw it was only the Scooby Gang's chipped vampire. "Spike? What are you doing down here?"

The soulless undead looked at him in undisguised annoyance. "Came in through the tunnels, mate. Running low on burba weed." William the Bloody held up what appeared to be stringy vines of some sort. "Stir it in with the blood, makes it all hot 'n spicy."

Xander looked disgusted. "Spike, have I ever told you how GLAD I was the day you finally moved out of my basement?"

"Mighta mentioned it once or twice." William the Bloody smirked at the mortal, as he turned to head back towards the tunnel entrance.

"HEY!" Xander called out. "Where do you think you're goin' with that stuff?"

"What? I was gonna pay for it – eventually," Spike said defensively, but then he gave up the charade when he saw Harris wasn't buying it. "All right, so I was gonna nick it instead, 'cause that's what I do. Evil undead here, remember?"

"Just go upstairs and pay Anya for what you've got there, Captain Peroxide. And hey – if you ever try to pull something like this again? I'll tell Ahn about this conversation. Trust me; my girl has forgotten more about inflicting torture on guys than you'll ever know, and since you can't even fight back thanks to that chip in your cranium, you really are gonna regret stealing from her – and Giles," Xander warned the platinum-haired vampire.

Snorting in contempt, the English undead just stomped up the stairs without even looking at the man he considered to be just an irrelevant brick-layer.

And at that point, on the other side of town, Jonathan Levinson finished incanting his Latin spell to Janus.

Now, as has already been said, Janus was the Roman god of chaos. It was what he did, not to mention what he was. So, on a whim, he – or rather it, as Janus was far beyond the simple concept of human gender – decided to do something totally unexpected.

Despite slaughtering Jonathan for his insulting actions, Janus nonetheless empowered the guy's spell so that everyone in Sunnydale who had been changed into their costumes four years ago – was so affected again. Whoever they were, they changed into whoever or whatever they had dressed up as tonight.

Xander silently screamed as he staggered backwards, his vocal cords no longer working. The magicks Jonathan had invoked started working their way inside him, until he toppled over – dead.

Because in order to become a whitelighter, you have to die first.

The chaos magic ignored his state of non-life and latched onto his soul, as Xander's mystical essence tried to depart his corpse. It quickly wrapped itself around the ethereal white light, trapping it like a fly in amber and preventing it from journeying on to either Heaven or Hell.

Knowledge from various sources was subsequently obtained, as it came streaming in from the mystic realms. Knowledge about demons, magic and human history showed up to be used as needed by the nascent whitelighter. Finally, the memories of the new persona were added in and then the chaos magic focused its attention on the physical shell of the corpse.

Xander's limbs quivered as the magical power rushed through them, preparing the body for what was to come next; being transformed into white orb lights. A blue shimmering light came into existence and started hovering over the man's body, quickly intensifying in appearance. The blue light then shone down upon the Xander-shaped collection of white orbs, very much like that scene that Harris had watched in the recent 'Charmed' episode where Paige Mathews had taken over from the dead Prue Halliwell – and the Power of Three had been restored on the popular TV show.

The blue light quickly faded away as the chaos magic finished its work, and the body returned to human form – but not human existence. The new whitelighter known only as Alexander – someone and something that should not exist, but did so anyway – then slowly opened his eyes and got up off the floor.

Frowning in confusion, Alexander quickly felt the nauseating presence of the Hellmouth nearby; and feeling thoroughly sickened and disgusted by its pervasive evil, the guardian angel for good witches quickly orbed out, heading for the whitelighter realm up above.

A place which, unfortunately for Alexander, did not exist outside the fictional realm of television and DVDs.

And not all that far away in her pyramid-shaped tomb, the ancient female Guardian nodded to herself in satisfaction as her plan to save the Slayer line and legacy finally got underway.

TBC...


	2. Halloween Part Deux

See Part One for Disclaimer and details. Thanks for all the reviews and feedback so far, folks, I really do appreciate them. And, given how much of a feedback junkie I truly am, I hope you all don't mind if I ask you all to keep on doing it. Praise, flames, whatever. Well, now that that's out of the way, on with the story...

***

**Part Two: Halloween Part Deux**

**The Magic Box, Sunnydale**

**October 31****st****, 2001**

Chaos and pandemonium suddenly erupted throughout the magic store as a number of customers suddenly became their costumes, thanks to the evening's chaos magic empowered by Janus.

A couple of 12-year-old girls turned into huge butterflies and soared up towards the ceiling, looking for a way out of the building. A teenage boy turned into Jesse James, who promptly drew his six-shooter and started blasting away at anything that moved.

And of course, within the Scooby Gang, Willow and Buffy turned into who they had dressed up as well, given how they, along with Xander, had bought costumes from Ethan Rayne four years ago and, thus, were subject to Janus's whim tonight.

As the screaming erupted throughout the magic store a disoriented 17-year-old Buffy shook her head, trying to clear it. ( _What's going on?_ ) the Slayer asked herself in confusion, before she spied the gun-happy cowboy and promptly threw herself at him, wrestling the gun away. "What the hell is this-?" Miss Summers muttered, as she and Jesse briefly tussled before she knocked him out cold.

The screaming abruptly evaporated, as the last of the terrified customers bolted out of the Magic Box. Even the two butterflies swooped down and out the door, leaving the Scoobs alone in the store.

"Buffy, are you all right?!" Giles shouted, as he came over to the girl.

"It's cool, I'm fine-" Buffy started to say automatically as she got up, but then she looked around and the Chosen One realized that everything was definitely NOT cool and fine.

For one thing, Giles was wearing a Halloween costume of some sort. And her Watcher did not do such things; as far back as Buffy could remember, he'd never worn anything but his customary tweed clothing. Besides, Halloween had been nearly two months ago and Giles also looked – well, old. In the schoolgirl teenager's opinion, of course, he'd always looked old but now there were distinct lines about Rupert's forehead and eyes that Buffy could have sworn weren't there this morning. "Giles? I-is that you?"

Rupert Giles frowned. There had been such a joyous look in Buffy's eyes for a moment, something he couldn't remember seeing ever since he'd returned from England. "Yes, of course it's me. Buffy, what's wrong-?"

"That's what I'd like to know!" a blonde twenty-something woman snapped out, who was standing protectively over the cash register.

"Same 'ere," said an accented male voice – one that Buffy recognized immediately.

"SPIKE!!" the Chosen One shrieked as Buffy withdrew a stake from the back of her pants and reflexively went into Slay mode, thinking that this was the same soulless demon who had been trying to kill her and her friends for over four months, back in 1998.

"What the-" William the Bloody muttered before his eyes went wide, as Buffy flew at him with her wooden weapon aiming directly for his heart. The British vampire barely had time to dodge as the stake plunged all the way through his left shoulder, and he screamed in agony. Miss Summers simply withdrew her weapon though and prepared to strike again.

"BUFFY, NO!! DON'T STAKE HIM!!" a brunette girl who looked around fifteen screamed desperately at Buffy, which caused the Slayer to pause for a moment. But only for a moment, as the 17-year-old quickly dismissed the plea and got back to business.

"Vis zenobia! Solvere!" a female voice shouted. One that Buffy, if she had been in her right mind, would have recognized belonged to Tara. The Slayer was too busy flying across the room and smashing into the wall thanks to the witch's spell, though, to ask who had cast it.

"Spike, get outta here! Buffy's gone completely Insane-o Girl!!" Dawn screamed at her friend, and the undead guy was not slow to heed the brunette teenager's advice. His black leather duster flying backwards almost as if a cape, William ran out of the Magic Box as fast as his legs could carry him.

"Buffy, uh, w-why did you just attack Spike-?" Giles looked utterly confused by everything that had happened in his store within the last minute or so.

"Never mind that, Giles! Where are we? And who are all these strangers?" Miss Summers glared around at Anya, Dawn and Tara before seeing Willow on the floor unconscious. "Willow!!"

Everyone ran over to the redhead, and Buffy instantly got another terrible shock. The person before her was obviously Willow Rosenberg, and yet it wasn't the Willow she knew. Her best friend looked a lot older than seventeen now. "What the hell..."

"Buffy, what's wrong with you?" Dawn grabbed her by the arm and tried to force her big sister to look at her.

"Get your hands off me!" Buffy snarled at her, which made Dawn go white with shock. Her sister had never spoken like this to her before. "Whoever the hell you are..."

"It's me, Dawn! I'm your sister, you idiot! What's wrong with you?!" Dawn demanded again.

"Newsflash, but I don't have a sister," Buffy spat out to this stranger, which almost made Dawn faint in horror. This was her worst nightmare ever since finding out she had once been the Key, after all.

"Buffy, don't say that!" Tara asked pleadingly, her eyes growing shiny. "Please..."

Miss Summers ignored that one as she started to slap Willow's cheeks gently. "Willow? Will, come on, wake up! We got us some big problems here!"

The redhead groaned, as she finally returned to consciousness. "What happened? Where am I?" she asked groggily, as Buffy helped her up.

"You fainted," Anya said simply, still hovering by the cash register.

"And, and we're in the Magic Box, of course," Tara supplied hastily.

"The what?" both blonde and redhead said at the same time.

"Willow-" Buffy started to say.

"Willow?" the other woman interrupted. "Buffy, what's wrong with you? It's me, Jenny Calendar. Your computer teacher?"

Giles almost fainted himself at hearing that one. "WHAT?" ( _Good Lord, what the devil is going on around here..._ )

"England, is that you?" Jenny-in-Willow turned around and ran over to him. Before anyone could stop her, the redhead joyously gave the British man a full, passionate and loving kiss on the lips.

"WILLOW!" Tara looked like she was the one about to faint from shock now, as Giles shoved the possessed female away.

"All right, that's it. Someone tell me what's going on around here!!" Buffy demanded in her best 'I am Slayer, obey me!' voice.

"I'm sure that's what we'd all like to know," Anya said with a frown. "Buffy, do you really not know me, Tara and Dawn?"

"Never met any of you before in my life," Buffy said simply, as Tara comforted a traumatized Dawn and Giles stared at a hurt-looking Willow.

"Well, it's obvious that, that something very strange has happened," Rupert said shakily. "Uh, Willow..."

"I'm not Willow!!" the redhead snapped angrily.

"Um, y-yes, so you say, but, but that's Willow's body you're inhabiting," Giles gestured helplessly. "Take a look for yourself, if you don't believe me..."

Jenny-in-Willow quickly spotted a mirror and promptly screamed when she saw her own reflection. "What's happened to me? Why am I in Willow's body?"

"Giles?" Buffy demanded. "If you've got an explanation for all this, I for one would be very glad to hear it, Watcher mine!"

"I, I don't actually know what's going on," the ex-Watcher confessed, rather surprised to hear her call him that old nickname. "I mean, everything was proceeding smoothly a few moments ago during the store's Halloween sale..."

"Halloween? Halloween was months ago, Giles! Remember, when I got turned into 18th century Lady Useless for the night?" Buffy interrupted. Then she saw everyone staring at her. "What? Have I got lipstick on my teeth or something?"

"Buffy, Wi...er, Jenny. What, what's the date as far you're concerned?" Rupert asked slowly.

"It's January 19th, of course," the Chosen One said impatiently.

"No, it's February 24th," Jenny-in-Willow corrected her.

"A-and the year?" Giles asked softly, having the horrible feeling he was not going to like their answer even as Buffy stared at the redhead in confusion.

"1998," both Buffy and Jenny-in-Willow replied.

"Actually, it's Halloween 2001," Anya piped up as both the Slayer and the technopagan turned to stare at her in shock. "And who are you again? 'Cause I've never heard of anyone named 'Jenny Calendar', you know."

"Rupert...what-?" the ghost of Janna Kalderash, a.k.a. Jenny Calendar, instinctively turned to her boyfriend in the confusion.

"Today is October 31st, 2001," Giles said slowly, unable to help staring at the possessed form of Willow. "And Jenny Calendar – has been dead for nearly four years."

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!" Buffy yelled, even as a wide-eyed Jenny-in-Willow looked ready to faint all over again after hearing that one.

Giles adopted an air of calm detachment, his traditional defense when his former Slayer started shouting like this. "Something very odd has happened, Buffy, and it appears that it had happened to just you and Willow – not any of the rest of us. I think you'd both best calm down and just relax for a moment."

Reluctantly, the possessed females did so. "Now, I need to ask you both, what is the last thing you remember? I mean, the very last thing," Giles said slowly and carefully.

"That's easy. Me and Ms. Calendar had just arrived at my surprise birthday party at the Bronze," Buffy said.

"Your 17th birthday party?" Dawn spoke up. "The one with that vampire gatecrasher?"

"Yeah, I-" Buffy cut herself off. "Hey, how did you know that?" she asked the one-time Key.

"Never mind that for now," Giles swiftly cut in. "Ms. Calendar?"

Jenny-in-Willow looked hurt all over again at the formality, but then replied, "I was in the computer lab, of course. I was working on translating the text for the ritual to restore Angel's soul-"

"WHAT?" Buffy interrupted, looking shocked. "What are you talking about? Restore Angel's soul? Do you mean that he LOST it somehow?"

"She doesn't remember that part of it," Dawn said mournfully, starting to get over the shock of being treated like a piece of garbage by her own sister even as Jenny-in-Willow looked at the Slayer in surprise.

"Remember what part of what?" Buffy demanded.

"Buffy, about a month ago – well, at least the way I remember it – you gave Angel a moment of perfect happiness after you two slept together on your birthday," Jenny-in-Willow said as gently as she could. "I didn't know it at the time, but his curse had an escape clause; if Angel ever experienced even one moment of perfect happiness, then he would lose his soul and become Angelus again. The evil, soulless vampire he originally was."

"No, no way," Buffy shook her head in denial. "That's – that's like completely insane! I DON'T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT!" she suddenly yelled.

"Hey! Will you stop yelling? You're starting to give all of us a headache," Anya told the Slayer tactlessly.

"I'm afraid it's true, Buffy," Giles said wearily, ignoring the ex-demon. "Angelus was unleashed back then, at the same time the Judge was."

"But it doesn't make any sense!" Buffy stubbornly insisted. She refused to believe what she'd just heard, and she didn't want to think about what the implications of all this would mean. "I mean, why do such a stupid curse with a loophole like that? What good was it supposed to do anybody?"

Jenny-in-Willow stepped forward. "Listen carefully, Buffy. When Angelus was punished for his actions a hundred years ago, it was because he had gleefully murdered the favorite daughter of the tribe. Can you understand that? The soul curse was done for revenge, pure and simple; it was never supposed to help anyone or accomplish any good in this world. It was cast to bring about eternal torment for an evil monster, not to eventually provide you with a boyfriend or soul mate."

Buffy's face was like stone as the computer teacher finished up, "Try to look at it this way, if you can. If a vampire killed somebody who meant more to you than life itself – your mother, for example – how much would you care about someone falling in love with her murderer, a century from now?"

"I, I never thought about it like that," Dawn muttered thickly, holding onto Tara tightly. Her plans of sneaking out tonight with her best friend Janice were completely forgotten, as the memories of her dead mother suddenly surfaced in her mind.

"Wait a minute. Where is Angel right now? And where's my mom-" Buffy shut up as Dawn instantly burst into tears, Tara rocking her gently. "What's the matter with her?"

"And they call ME insensitive," Anya groaned. "Weren't you listening? We told you before, Dawn is your annoying younger sibling! And she has every right to express her grief in this matter, the same as all of us."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Miss Summers demanded, looking more confused than ever as she stared at Dawn. ( _Did Mom adopt her or something?_ )

Giles came over and knelt down so that he was at eye level with his Slayer. "I'm so terribly sorry, Buffy. But I'm afraid that Joyce died roughly eight months ago, from an aneurysm within her brain."

The Chosen One almost stopped breathing. "No. No, you're lying! That's not true, it-it can't be!" she immediately insisted, shaking her head in denial of the words she'd just heard. The look on Rupert's face quickly convinced her otherwise though. "No, no, no! THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!!"

Giles grabbed her into a big embrace and let Buffy cry in his arms, hoping that she would let it all out so that they could get back to figuring out why she seemed to have lost her memory of the last four years. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

While Giles was comforting Buffy and Tara was comforting Dawn, Jenny-in-Willow came over to Anya. "So. If this is 2001 and I've been dead ever since 1998 – I take it you're a new member of Buffy's friends, someone who joined the group at some point since then?"

"Yes. I'm Xander's fi-uh, girlfriend," Anya caught herself before she blurted out the truth.

"Really? So where is Xander then?" Jenny-in-Willow looked around the store, reasonably sure she hadn't seen Harris anywhere around here so far.

"Down in..." Anya cut herself off, instantly worried. Her fiancé had been absent WAY too long for her liking, and so the former vengeance demon yanked off her skates and sprinted for the stairs.

"Xander? XANDER!!" Miss Jenkins shouted, as she scrabbled for the light switch and searched frantically for her beloved. Except he was nowhere to be found, of course. Anya then looked around to Jenny-in-Willow, who had followed her downstairs.

"He's gone!!"

***

**Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco**

**The same time**

The whitelighter named Alexander, who had once been Xander Harris and still contained Xander's soul within his body, was definitely feeling concerned about his current situation.

Being a fictional creation of tonight's chaos magic, Alexander was of course completely unprepared to deal with suddenly finding himself in the real world. The guardian angel had been unable to find the whitelighter realm, and there had been no response in his calls to the Elders – or any other whitelighter, for that matter. He was unable to sense any of his charges, and possibly worst of all, none of the demons and vampires in this world that he could sense felt...right to him.

With nowhere else to go Alexander had orbed to San Francisco in order to find Leo Wyatt and the Charmed Ones, the three Halliwell sisters. He had, of course, failed to succeed in this endeavour since the witches, their manor and even Prescott Lane did not exist in this world. There was no trace of the Nexus either. Just about the only good news Alexander had learned so far was that the Underworld had somehow vanished as well; there were no darklighters around anywhere that he could perceive, and the Source of All Evil seemed to be missing in action as well.

( _What is going on here_? ) Alexander asked himself, pitifully trapped in the land of confusion. ( _Where_ _is everybody? I mean, surely I can't be the only whitelighter left in the world. Can I?_ )

All of a sudden, a jingle echoed within his ears. For a moment, he joyfully thought it was a contact from the Elders, but then Alexander realized it was the call of a new charge. He could not recognize it as being from any of his other charges, fictional ghosts that only resided within his memories which they were.

( _Duty calls, I suppose,_ ) the young man thought to himself, before disappearing in a cloud of blue-white lights.

***

**Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles**

**A moment later**

As Alexander orbed into the headquarters of Angel Investigations, he was rather surprised to find himself within what looked like a dark and abandoned hotel. "Well, this is odd..."

Shaking his head, he started off down a hallway where the whitelighter met a black man and a white woman hurrying the opposite way. The two seemed very surprised to see him as the former gang leader said, "Hey, who are you?"

"My name's Alexander," the guardian angel said carefully, unsure if one of these two was his new charge. "Um, I was wondering if you could possibly help me? I seem to be a bit lost at the moment..."

All of a sudden, the sound of a man yelling from downstairs and furniture being smashed could be heard in the corridor.

"That's gotta be Wesley!" the dark-haired woman exclaimed, looking frightened.

The black man just grabbed her and Alexander and dragged them into one of the rooms, quickly barricading them all in by shoving the dresser in front of the door. "Hey. Charles Gunn," he introduced himself to the newcomer. "Wish we coulda met under better circumstances, dog, but as you mighta been able to guess – these ain't exactly the best circumstances right now!"

"I'm Fred, Fred Burkle," the female introduced herself. "Uh, Mr. Alexander, what are you doing here?" Then she answered her own question, "Oh, if you've come to hire the detective agency for something? I don't think Angel Investigations can help you right now..."

More yelling could be heard outside the door, a male voice screaming Fred's name. "If I may ask, who is that shouting and ranting outside?" the guardian angel inquired.

"It's Wesley," Fred answered timidly. "Uh, he's sort of the boss of the agency?"

Alexander just raised an eyebrow as Gunn said, "I don't know what the hell's happened to him, but Wes just went from good guy to psycho killer tonight! We need to find a weapon or something, damn it..."

"Charles, you can't kill him! Wesley isn't responsible for his actions right now, he's been infected-" the physics genius abruptly cut herself off, remembering there was a civilian present.

"You know what? I am getting really sick of your whining, Fred, and you constantly telling me what to do!" the black man suddenly whirled around and glared at the woman.

Winifred was no fool, she quickly figured out what had happened. "You've been infected with that demon blood as well!"

Gunn just snarled at her and had just started to lunge forward in order to beat her to death, when Alexander zapped him with a relatively weak bolt of lightning that erupted from his hands. Charles then slumped down to the floor, unconscious.

"I hope he'll forgive me for that later," Alexander muttered, before he turned his attention back to Fred. "You mentioned something about demon blood?"

"Oh, that! I, I was just kidding..." Fred grinned shakily; backing away from the guy who she now knew couldn't be just an ordinary human.

"Miss Burkle, please. I think we both know that demons do exist," Alexander said firmly, ignoring the woman's astonishment. "Please, tell me everything. Hopefully I'll be able to help you, somehow."

Realizing she had nothing to lose, Fred quickly related a strange tale about a man named Billy, a woman-hating individual that the detective agency had recently tangled with. He was someone who had some sort of demon ancestry, and could cause men to go into fits of misogynistic rage just by physical contact. "All I can figure is that Wesley got infected while he was working with Billy's blood from that handprint we found, and Charles somehow got infected, too-"

Just then, her explanation was interrupted as an axe started smashing its way through the door. "Fred, I know you're in there!" Wesley's angry British voice was heard coming from out in the hall.

"Wesley, please! Don't do this – fight it!" Fred screamed as Alexander automatically put himself in between her and the axe-wielding Englishman.

"Fight it? Fight what? Would you like to hear my theory, Fred? It has a lot to do with how incredibly stupid you are..." Wes forced back the dresser inch by inch, and finally entered the room. He stopped in astonishment though, as soon as he saw Alexander. "Xander Harris? What the devil are you doing here?"

"That's not my name," the whitelighter said with the slightest trace of uncertainty. "You must have me confused with someone else."

"Well, no matter," the former Watcher advanced threateningly, spying Gunn lying unconscious against the wall. "Whoever you are, you've got two choices right now. Either get out of my way, or I chop you into little pieces..."

At that moment, Alexander knew he had to act. Being a pacifist, he traditionally avoided fighting, except when desperately in need to protect an innocent, like the incident just now with Gunn. And like all whitelighters, he was absolutely not allowed to kill or maim anyone, so he grabbed Fred and orbed them out into the corridor. Alexander then yelled at the woman, "Run!"

Fred, stunned over what had just happened, nonetheless took his advice and ran for the stairs. With a roar, Wes came charging out of the room, intent on hunting her down. "Get out of my way!" he shouted at the whitelighter furiously, who moved to stop him.

"No. And I'm told you're not responsible for your actions right now, so technically you're an innocent and I have to help you," Alexander said, before he had what could almost be called an epiphany. "Don't tell me that you're my new charge? Are you a witch, by any chance?"

"Of course I'm not a witch," Wesley hissed, clearly at the end of his tether. "I may have some magical ability, but I don't – oh, bugger this!" He then swung the axe down directly onto Alexander's head.

As soon as the weapon struck however, Wesley was blinded by Alexander's body exploding into countless white orbs right in front of his eyes. Wes stumbled back with a grunt of pain as Alexander resumed his human shape, unharmed; but unfortunately for him, the British man fell over the railing and crashed down into the hotel lobby below.

"Wesley!!" Fred yelled, just before she ran out the front doors. Despite what he had just done, she was still very concerned about the British man and ran over to examine him. Fred then screamed and jumped back, as Alexander orbed in right beside her. "How did you do that?!"

The whitelighter ignored her, he just placed his palms on Wyndham-Pryce's body and his hands glowed with a heavenly golden light. Fred was in complete awe as she saw Wesley's injuries vanish as if they had simply never existed.

"How did you...?" Miss Burkle asked again, wondering if she was dreaming at the moment.

"He should be fine now, I've healed him completely. Including getting rid of that demon blood he'd been infected with," Alexander said clinically. He cocked his head for a moment, and then vanished with the usual display of blue-white lights. The whitelighter came back a few moments later, holding Gunn in his arms; Fred quickly helped him deposit the black man onto the lobby couch.

"Mr. Gunn should be fine now, too. I've healed him as well," Alexander said hesitantly. He was unsure whether or not to use his whitelighter dust on the woman and erase her memory completely of what she had just seen; but in the end, the guardian angel decided against it. ( _There are no Elders around for me to answer to right now, anyway._ ) "If Wesley ever needs me again, tell him that all he has to do is call for me."

Thus, without another word, Alexander orbed out of the hotel, still trying to make sense out of all this.

***

**Harris residence, Sunnydale**

**The next day**

The spell had finished at sunrise, and now the aftermath had begun.

Dawn was understandably very upset with Buffy for everything that Big Sis had said and done last night. Tara was a little upset with Willow as well, even though the blonde witch knew perfectly well that the redhead couldn't be blamed for what had happened the previous evening. Unfortunately, the sad fact is watching the woman you love kiss a man that way is enough to seriously mess with your emotions, despite whatever your head may be telling you.

Giles was still freaked out by having the love of his life returned to him for just one night, albeit in the body of a girl whom he felt was starting to develop serious control issues. Anya was frantic with worry about her missing boyfriend, while Willow was dealing with having briefly become her favorite teacher from back in high school. Buffy was trying to cope with the trauma of having been pulled out of Heaven all over again, and as for Spike...

Well, despite his love for Buffy Anne Summers, the former Big Bad was a bit peeved with her at the moment for trying to kill him that way, and was sulking in his crypt.

Xander knew nothing about all this yet, though. After the spell had ended, he had arrived back on the Hellmouth by bus from Los Angeles, silently thanking his lucky stars that he hadn't been on top of the Golden Gate Bridge when the mojo had ended. THAT would have been a real nightmare to try to explain to the authorities, for sure.

Shaking his head, Xander wondered how the hell it was possible that the same thing could happen to the same guy, twice. Harris started seriously considering whether or not he should just move to Australia, or some other country where they didn't celebrate the Halloween holiday. ( _And thank God I actually listened to Jonathan's advice a few days ago, 'cause I don't even wanna think about what Pirate Me would have gotten up to last night!_ )

After Xander got out of the shower and slipped on some fresh clothes, there was a loud knock on the door. When he went to answer it Xander was astonished to see Cordelia Chase, his ex-girlfriend from high school, standing in the corridor. "What are you doing here?"

"Good to see you too, dorkhead!" the young woman snapped as she barged in without bothering to wait for an invitation. Having been born and raised in Sunnydale, Cordelia knew better than to expect one from her ex of all people. "All right, let's hear it."

"Hear what, exactly?" Xander said as slowly as he could, mostly in order to annoy Cordy as much as possible.

"Oh, please. You know what I'm talking about, lamebrain!" Miss Chase tried not to yell. Her nerves were almost completely frayed from what had happened within the last twelve hours, and the trip to Sunnydale hadn't been a short one either. "Last night while Angel and I were dealing with that demon lowlife Billy, apparently you came around to the hotel and saved Fred from the psychotic versions of Gunn and Wesley. Now what gives? And how the hell did you do that flashy light show teleportation thing that Fred's been talking about nonstop? Last time I checked, you couldn't do magic in order to save your own life!"

Xander just stared at her. "Cordelia. First off, I haven't seen you or even talked to you for roughly two and a half years. So, (a) what would you know, and (b) why the hell did YOU come here to talk to me about this? I mean, as far as I recall, we didn't exactly part on the best of terms, and you said it would be a cold day in hell before you ever willingly set foot in this town again."

"That was then, this is now," Miss Chase said uncomfortably. She didn't want to admit that she'd deliberately engineered that whole argument thing back then, so that Xander would lose all interest in remaining in contact with her and she wouldn't be tempted to take him back despite his infidelity. "Besides, I'm worried about Wesley. We all are; he went straight home after he woke up, and he's not responding to any of my phone messages. So besides giving me an explanation about how you're no longer the Zeppo around here, I want to know exactly what you did to him!"

Cordelia regretted her choice of words almost as soon as they left her mouth; she could see all traces of friendliness vanish as soon as Xander heard the 'Zeppo' wisecrack. That one word was enough to bring back memories of an era they both would have gladly preferred to forget. ( _Oh, crap. Now I've done it, just look at his face!_ )

"Xander, I-" Cordelia started to apologize.

"I have nothing to say to you about what happened last night," Xander interrupted the former cheerleader coldly. "If Wesley hasn't recovered in a few days, ask that Fred girl to give me a call – I'll go down to LA and talk to Wes personally, if she thinks that'll help. But in the meantime, I want you to leave. And unless an apocalypse or whatever is about to take place, don't talk to me again. Now scram, and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out!"

That particular look of disgust was something Cordelia hadn't seen on Xander's face ever since junior year, before they had started dating. But even during their worst days in high school, after Xander and Cordelia had broken up thanks to the whole cheating thing, he had never looked at her with such utter disdain and scornful contempt.

As she left the apartment Cordelia painfully realized that, almost without meaning to, she might have finally managed to really hurt her ex-boyfriend for what he'd done to her back in 1998.

Too bad how it didn't make her feel the slightest bit good about it, after all these years.

TBC...


	3. The Day After

See Part One for Disclaimer and details. Hey everyone, thanks for all the reviews and feedback so far, wow - I wasn't expecting such an enthusiastic response to the story, but I'm definitely glad you're enjoying it. So please keep it coming: hit that big shiny review button at the bottom of the page! Tell me what you think is good or bad, it can only help me improve as a writer. Okay, now that all that's out of the way, here's what you came here for...

***

**Part Three: The Day After**

**Pyramid-shaped tomb, Blessed Memories Cemetery, Sunnydale**

**November 1****st****, 2001**

The Guardian of the Slayer line lay still in her sarcophagus, considering various lines of strategy and planning. The old woman's mind was racing at almost a mile a minute, and most of the scenarios she was coming up with weren't looking too good.

Her chosen champion, a male youth who – in his own bumbling way – had similarly declared himself a guardian of the Slayer line back when he was a teenager, was also something of a wild card. The Guardian had carefully examined his actions over the past few years – against the Master, Angelus, the Mayor Richard Wilkins, the Initiative, and finally the late and unlamented hellgod Glorificus – and she had come to the conclusion that a lot of his success could be attributed to pure luck. He would need careful guidance if her plan to save the Slayer line was to succeed.

"Lemme tell you something, toots. With these people, nothing ever turns out the way you expect it will. Believe me, I know from painful personal experience."

Startled, the Guardian stood up from her resting place. "Who are you? And how did you get in here?"

"Name's Whistler. Well, for the last decade or so, anyway," the balance demon shrugged. "And as for how I got in here? You'd be surprised at all the different places I can enter into if I have to."

"I don't understand," the ancient woman looked confused.

"Yeah, I know. Nobody understands me. That's my curse," the demon chuckled to himself for a moment. "Still, we need to talk. That's why I'm here."

"Talk about what?" the Guardian asked slowly. She had been hidden so long that she had almost forgotten how to hold a polite conversation with somebody.

"Hey, are you worried about your hidden scythe or axe or whatever it is you wanna call it? Don't be. That's not why I'm here," Whistler told the Guardian. "I'm here 'cause the Powers That Be are suddenly interested in you now."

"The Powers That Be? You're a balance demon." The Guardian's face went cold and expressionless as she realized what her companion was.

"That I am. And come on, you of all people have been around long enough to know that not all demons are dedicated to the destruction of all life!" Whistler said in exasperation.

"As you say, I've been around for a long time. That is how I know you work for that which has no interest in eliminating those who would kill the Chosen One," the Guardian told him brusquely. "They do nothing but try to maintain the status quo. Mark my words; that is why one day all of their Champions will completely abandon them, when the Powers get too arrogant for their own good and they demand too many sacrifices for too little in return."

"Maybe," Whistler shrugged again, knowing that his bosses were listening in on the conversation and hoping they would take the warning to heart. "Still, that doesn't mean squat with regards to the current mess we find ourselves in at the moment."

"What do you mean?" the white-haired woman asked.

"You know exactly what I mean," the man in the unquestionably hideous hat looked annoyed at that statement. "The mess involving the blondie Slayer who was pulled back from Paradise, thanks to that egotistical overachiever witch and her three idiot pals. I swear, they've really gummed up the works this time! And it's only a matter of time before someone like the First Evil starts trying to exterminate all your girls, present and future."

"So what are you saying?" the Guardian looked uncomfortable. "That my task is already hopeless?"

"No, no, I ain't sayin' that. Leastways, not yet," Whistler replied. "I'm just here to tell you, this is an opportunity for us to clean house together."

"Clean house together? What is that supposed to mean?" The Guardian was starting to look annoyed with her companion.

"You'll see, soon enough," the balance demon said cryptically. "Piece of advice, though: don't be surprised if someone else on the team eventually shows up here as well, okay? In case you ain't noticed, everything alive has a connection to the Powers: and you can't hide in this little hovel of yours alone forever."

"I have no use for your Powers, and cryptic warnings do not interest me either," the Guardian said civilly. "If that is your strategy, you may as well leave right now: I have nothing further to say to you." To emphasize her point, the Guardian turned her back on Whistler and lay down in her sarcophagus again.

The balance demon just shrugged yet again, as he vanished from view in the blink of an eye. He had already said what he had to say, and laid the groundwork for the PTB's plans in the future.

***

**Summers residence, Sunnydale**

**The same time**

"You actually turned into a real whitelighter?!"

Xander tried not to wince at the shriek from his red-haired best friend. "Yeah. But is that really any stranger than you turning into Ms. Calendar for the night, Will?"

"Darn tooting it is!!" Willow nodded her head. "I mean, I've been possessed before – well, sort of, y'know, when I did the soul curse back in junior year. And you've been possessed before by the hyena and Soldier Boy as well. So, so, heck yeah, definitely!"

"Eh, I guess you may have a point. So, what happened with you guys last night while I was orbing around all over the state?" Xander asked.

Willow quickly launched into an animated tale of what had happened the previous evening. She told Xander how Buffy had gone out into the night to find his missing self and try to deal with all the Halloween chaos, after briefly catching up on everything she'd forgotten since 1998. Then the others had gone into research mode during which she, or rather Jenny Calendar, had had a long conversation with Giles. The pair had gone down into the Magic Box basement for some privacy, despite how uncomfortable that had made Tara, and spoken privately about what had transpired ever since the computer teacher's demise over three years ago.

"She and Giles didn't go into the really private stuff, I guess mainly because they both knew I couldn't help eavesdropping on everything they were saying," Willow eventually said to her oldest friend. "But Xander, I swear – I never knew until last night just how LONELY Giles really feels."

"Lonely?"

"And then some," Willow nodded vigorously. "I mean, we're the only friends he has – and, and Ms. Calendar was kinda surprised to learn that – plus, he hasn't had a girlfriend ever since that Olivia person ran away from Sunnydale nearly two years ago. So, I'm kinda worried about him now too. Only hanging out with people who were just teenagers a couple of years ago, and growing old alone? That can't be healthy for Giles, like, at all," the redhead slowly shook her head.

"I guess so. Never really thought about it before," Xander looked troubled. "So, how did Ms. C react when she found out that Overbite killed her and left her in Giles' bed that night?"

"Not well," Willow shivered at the memories. "In fact, she was kinda devastated. I mean, at first Ms. Calendar thought she died with everybody hating her, 'til Giles set her straight about that." The redhead looked away for a moment.

"Will? What is it?" Xander asked. He had been able to read her like a book ever since childhood, after all.

"Xander – you know that I'm gay now, right?" Miss Rosenberg asked hurriedly.

"It's been brought to my attention once or twice," Xander deadpanned.

Willow playfully smacked him, "I'm serious!"

"I know," Xander smiled back at her, before he said, "So?"

Willow lost the smirk and said, "Giles and I – well, actually it was Giles and Ms. Calendar, I was just along for the ride and watching the whole thing – they kissed. Uh, more than once."

"WHAT?!" Xander demanded.

"Giles didn't force himself on me – I mean her," Willow hurriedly explained. "But she loved him so much, Xander, Ms. Calendar just couldn't help herself. It was almost dawn; Giles figured that was when the spell would end, so she just decided to go for it. And I, I kinda had a crush on Giles way back when, so, so I feel kinda messed up right now! I mean, I can't discuss this with Tara, and Buffy has her own issues, and Dawn's simply too young, and Spike wouldn't care, and Anya would tell me to either forget it or just have sex with Giles in order to get it out of my system, and..."

"Breathe, Will! Breathe," Xander advised her, before the young woman lapsed completely into babble mode. "Look, you're happy with Tara, right?"

"Of course," Willow replied, as if that was a given.

"And guys, including yours truly, simply don't cut it in the romance department anymore, right?"

"I got over you a long time ago, sweetie," Willow smiled at him a little painfully.

"Then just my opinion, but I'd say there's nothing for you to worry about," Harris shrugged. "Basically, all this has been just another day at the office; and as long as you make it clear to your girlfriend that your heart still belongs to her, then you guys will be fine soon enough."

Willow hugged her oldest friend tightly, glad as always that he was present in her life. It was very hard, if not impossible, for Willow to try to contemplate living in Sunnydale without Xander Harris there as well. "Thanks. And I love you, you know that right?"

"Yeah, Will. I know, and I love you too," Xander said as they broke the hug. "So. What about Dawn? I figure that hearing your own sister say she doesn't have a clue who you are would have been kind of the traumatic?"

"Oh yeah, and then some," Willow's face again looked concerned. "I spoke with Buffy right after the spell was over, and she was really confused, Xander. It was like she had two sets of memories – one in which Dawn was there, and one in which she wasn't. I think the spell those monks did quickly got rid of those Dawn-less memories, but still – it kinda freaks me out knowing that Buffy remembered what life was like when Dawnie was just a big glowing ball of energy over in Europe somewhere."

"Well, if it makes you feel freaked, then try to imagine how DAWN feels about it," Xander muttered, cursing Halloween in general and the Hellmouth holiday in particular. "I better talk to her after she comes home from school, try to cheer her up a little."

"Right. Oh! Did I mention that Buffy almost staked Spike before he ran out of the Magic Box last night, 'cause she thought he was still with Drusilla and Angel was still her boyfriend?" Willow suddenly asked.

"No, but please tell me details. Because stories about Buffy beating up the fangless wonder always give me a happy," Xander smirked as Willow started talking again.

***

**Hyperion Hotel basement, Los Angeles**

**Three days later**

Cordelia Chase was sword training with Angel, the one and only vampire with a soul, but the undead Champion for the Powers could tell that her heart wasn't in it. His female friend was definitely distracted by something. So, taking her by surprise, the undead guy quickly batted Cordelia's sword aside and placed his blade up against her pretty neck.

Ignoring the look in her eyes, Angel said simply, "If this was the real thing, right now you'd be dead. Or worse!"

Cordelia's angry words died on her lips, since she knew her combat instructor was right. And if there was one thing you could say about Miss Chase, it was that she never shirked away from facing the truth. "Yeah. You're right. Sorry, I guess I'm just too out of it to do this properly right now."

Angel lowered his blade. "I kinda figured that, 'cause normally, you're a lot better with a sword than today's performance. So what's up?" When Cordelia didn't reply, he asked, "Is it about Wesley? I'm sure he'll eventually recover from what Billy did to him-"

"No, it's not that," Cordy interrupted. "It's about what happened in Sunnydale a few days ago."

Angel frowned at hearing this. He had learned what had happened from Cordelia, who had checked in with the Scoobies before leaving town, and he'd wondered more than once who had managed to do the chaos spell again. As far as the vampire knew, Giles and the others still hadn't managed to figure that one out. "What about it?"

"Angel...I've changed ever since I started working with you, haven't I? Back from when it was just you, me and Doyle, I mean." Cordelia was referring to the half-Irish Brachen demon who two years ago had bequeathed his head-splitting, migraine-causing visions to her, before dying for the cause. "I'm not that selfish bitch any longer who took pleasure in making life hell for people like Willow and Xander, am I?"

"No, of course not," Angel reassured her. "I mean, all that was a long time ago-"

"Really? I mean you've lived for like two hundred-plus years," Miss Chase interrupted him moodily. "For someone like you, life during high school is practically like yesterday, right?"

"I'm not sure where you're going with this." The bloodsucker looked a bit uncomfortable at being reminded how although he could walk like a man, he couldn't actually be one. Angel knew that he couldn't go out into the sunlight, or grow old, or even unconditionally love a woman lest his lose his soul again. "What do you say we just cut to the chase here?"

"Fine. I went to see Xander in Sunnydale, and less than thirty seconds after I walked through his front door? We were totally bitching at one another like it was going out of style or something," Cordelia finally admitted.

Angel shrugged dismissively. "Well, I never understood what you ever saw in him anyway. I mean most of the time, Xander Harris was a complete buffoon-"

"And yet he was the one who made your evil alter ego back off when Angelus went to kill Buffy in the hospital, right?" Miss Chase asked with a raised eyebrow as Angel instantly stiffened up. "Yeah, the big dork told me about that, I think it was one night that summer when everyone was angsting about where the hell Buffy had run off to. Y'know, I often wondered if that was the real reason why Xander hated you almost as much as he hated Angelus..."

In response to his look she added, "Oh please, you know what I mean! He was my boyfriend for nearly a year; of course I thought the guy always saw you as competition for Little Miss Slays-A-Lot. Still – I heard from Willow that he's in a serious relationship these days with that evil fairy godmother who came to town, so I could be wrong about that," Miss Chase frowned.

( _Evil fairy-? No, never mind. I'm pretty sure I don't want to know,_ ) Angel thought to himself, having forgotten who and what Anya used to be by this point. "So what happened exactly when you went to visit him?"

Cordelia's face fell again. "I went to the Hellmouth in order to get details about what really happened in the hotel that night, reason being that I didn't want to have that conversation over the phone where he could just hang up on me. But Xander threw me out of the house almost straightaway, after I accidentally called him the Zeppo again."

( _The Zeppo...the forgotten Marx brother?_ ) "Uh, the Zeppo?" Angel found it kind of hard to keep following the thread of Cordelia's conversation.

"One of my little nicknames for him, after we broke up during senior year. Our special code word for being the useless member of the group, y'know? Hence, my wondering whether deep down I've actually changed at all, if I was so insulting to someone who – as Xander himself pointed out – I hadn't even spoken to for nearly three years," Cordelia finished up rather miserably.

"Well, keep in mind that you two have a history together, most of it being bad," Angel offered sympathetically. "Besides, human nature can be a funny thing. I knew a man once who told me he was your typical class clown during high school, kinda like Xander himself. I mean for twenty years that guy was practically the pillar of the community, sober as a judge, but the night of his high school reunion? Within half an hour he was standing on top of a table and making everyone laugh 'til they cried, by doing a great impersonation of Richard Nixon," Angel shook his head at the memory.

"Your point being?" Cordelia asked impatiently.

"Going to Sunnydale briefly brought back who you were. But that's not who you are anymore," Angel said firmly. He picked up his sword and gave Cordelia hers. "'Cause the Cordelia Chase I remember back then, she used to just hide behind Xander during patrol instead of being able to fight with a katana."

The seer for the Powers was somehow comforted and insulted at the same time, then she assumed a combat stance and the sword training session quickly resumed.

***

**Harris residence, Sunnydale**

**November 15****th****, 2001**

Centuries before the birth of Christ, men and women had often argued over whether immortal souls and immortal gods actually existed. Janus himself had born witness to one man asking, "What am I, if not the sum of my memories and experiences?" and his opponent in the debate saying, "A man is defined by his actions, not by his memories and experiences."

That was part of the reason why the Roman god of chaos was eavesdropping on the arguing Xander and Anya tonight, as the woman furiously threw a vase at her fiancé and it smashed against the wall, just missing his head. "Ooooh! You make me so mad, Xander Harris! If I still had my powers..."

Up until that moment, the young man had been putting his energy into trying to calm down his angry fiancée. Things between these two had been rather rough ever since Halloween; they had been fighting a lot, basically for what appeared to Xander to be no good reason.

But Harris simply couldn't believe that Anya was threatening him with her past vengeance demon powers again. His own temper suddenly boiled over, surprising them both. "Yeah? What would you do if you still had your powers, Ahn? Rip out my liver? Slice open my throat? Make me listen to Spice Girls ballads for the rest of eternity? WHAT?"

Anya blinked first. "You're overreacting-"

"NO, I'M NOT!" Xander tried not to yell, but failed miserably. ( _Great, I betcha the neighbors will all start complaining to the landlord..._ )

"Xander, why are you being so completely unreasonable lately?" Anya demanded. "You sound like Mr. Initiative, humans good – demons bad. I thought we settled this a long time ago, so why are you being so anti-demon tonight?"

Sighing, Xander tried to explain. "I know, it's just that you've been threatening me with your demon past almost every night lately, and, and I'm really starting to get tired of it," he confessed.

"But, but I was a vengeance demon for over eleven hundred years, and I've been human again for less than five. It's part of who I am, Xander. I thought you understood that," Anya said slowly.

"I do," Xander told her. "But lately I've been thinking about things, I just can't help it – and I'd be a liar if I said all that stuff doesn't bother me nowadays."

"What exactly is it that's bothering you so much?" she asked, making a supreme effort to remain calm. Even though the topic of conversation really was beginning to upset the former Anyanka.

"Anya, it bothers me that you've killed more people than I've had hot dinners – and, and you don't regret any part of it," the young man tried to explain his feelings. "All those guys were cheating on their wives or girlfriends, sure, but some if not most of them had to be fathers, sons, brothers or whatever to other people. And everything their families must have gone through because of what you did, that sort of collateral damage doesn't upset you at all?"

"As far as I'm concerned, every one of those cheating males got exactly what they deserved," Anya said defensively, refusing to answer the question directly.

"All of them? I mean, over a thousand years and you never killed or hurt anyone who didn't deserve it?" Xander pressed her on the issue.

"I was called to deliver vengeance for scorned women, and that's what I did," Anya told him, again ducking the question somewhat. "Morals vary throughout different eras and cultures, Xander. But some things always remain the same: and if a woman wanted the asshole who had wronged her punished or dead, after I showed up, she got what she wanted. End of story."

( _This is getting us nowhere,_ ) Xander thought to himself in despair. Because in a sense, he wasn't as young as he used to be: the Halloween persona of Alexander the whitelighter had been nearly a century old, and Harris could remember witnessing demons kill lots of innocents over the decades even if those memories weren't the real deal. "Anya, ever since Halloween-"

Miss Jenkins cut him off at once, "It's that possession thing, isn't it? I knew it!! That whitelighter person, or identity, or whatever you wanna call it. That's why you're acting like this. So we should call Willow or Tara, and get them to make you forget all about what happened that night-"

"NO!!" Xander roared immediately, causing Anya to recoil away from him. He apologized at once, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But, but that's not an option, sweetheart. And I mean it, so please put that idea out of your head right now."

"So what am I supposed to do?!" Anya exploded at him. "Just sit here and argue with you all the time? This is getting ridiculous, Xander! It's not supposed to be this hard this early in a relationship, and you STILL haven't let me tell anybody about our engagement!"

"I know, I know," her fiancé replied wearily. "I've been waiting for the right time, I..."

"Oh my God," Anya stared at him in utter horror. A woman knows her man, after all, and she suddenly got a shocking insight into the current state of Xander's psyche. "You've gotten cold feet about the whole thing, haven't you? You now think that asking me to marry you is a big mistake!"

"No, that's not it at all!" Xander protested a bit too much. "I just want everything to be perfect-"

"That line is getting almost as old as I am. And don't you lie to me," Anya said, her ire growing by the moment. Staring into his eyes, the woman took off Xander's engagement ring which was on a chain around her neck. "Xander – either I put this ring on my finger right now, or when I leave this apartment – we're not engaged anymore."

Xander suddenly felt frozen, unable to move. He wanted to tell Anya to put the damn ring on her finger, and let the whole world know that they were betrothed to one another; but his mouth simply wouldn't obey his brain. Xander's lips parted, but the words just refused to come out.

This was the moment of truth, and like they say – the truth hurts.

In the end Anya just threw the ring at him and grabbed her coat and purse, in a sudden flurry of movement. Xander could hear the beginning of sobs in her harsh breathing, as the woman stormed out of the apartment. "Anya, wait-!"

No response. Still, he hadn't seriously expected one as Harris began cursing himself for the way he'd handled all this. But as Janus departed, his curiosity satisfied for the moment, the god of chaos stared into the future with one of his two heads; and the Roman deity judged that the current situation was a far less painful alternative to the wedding disaster which would have occurred a few months down the line.

The telephone soon rang, startling Harris out of his fugue state. He picked up and said, "Hello?"

"Giles, look, this isn't exactly a great time..."

"No, I'm not doing anything important right now, but still – it's not a good time!"

"Why do you want me to come over to the Magic Box?"

"A meeting? About what?"

"What do you mean, YOU'RE GOING BACK TO ENGLAND?!"

TBC...


	4. The Miracle

See Part One for Disclaimer and details. Thanks again to everyone who's sent reviews and feedback, seriously it really does make writing all the more worthwhile. Not much else to say, except I hope you continue to like the story, we're almost halfway through it now. And please, keep the reviews coming!

***

**Part Four: The Miracle**

**Just outside the Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles**

**November 28****th****, 2001**

As Xander headed for the front door of the hotel, he had no idea that back in Sunnydale, the Guardian was cursing him for resisting her attempts to guide him onto the path that she believed would save the Slayer line – and cursing herself as well, for ever choosing Harris as her champion in the first place. Even if he had known, though, the young man probably wouldn't have cared as he had enough problems of his own to worry about.

It had all started the night he and Anya had broken up, and Giles had announced to everyone that he had bought a one-way plane ticket back to England. When asked why he was doing this, the former Watcher had mentioned that he had been thinking about what Jenny Calendar had said during Halloween whilst in Willow's body, and he had decided that his beloved was quite right – he had to get a life before it was completely too late. This, in turn, meant going home to the United Kingdom.

There had been arguments and remonstrations about his choice of action, of course, but Giles had held firm. Until Xander had pulled him aside and demanded to know the real reason why Rupert was abandoning everyone like this. Thanks to his most recent Halloween possession, Harris alone had refused to buy what the Englishman was selling the others.

Eventually, after swearing him to secrecy Giles had admitted to Xander that the real reason he was leaving was that Buffy was relying too much on him for matters that she should have been handling herself – such as settling disputes with Dawn, and taking care of the Summers family financial problems. In Rupert's opinion, Buffy had to learn how to stand on her own two feet again instead of just wandering, zombie-like, through her new life the way she had been doing lately. And if he stayed, Giles knew he would be compelled to keep helping the way Buffy had been taking for granted lately, and thus defeat his own purpose.

Xander hadn't agreed with that hypothesis but, unfortunately, there was nothing he could do to stop Giles from willingly getting on a plane and disappearing out of the Scooby Gang's lives. And so, he had found himself the lone male amidst a group of emotional, screwed-up, and at times incredibly loud females.

A few days after Giles had left, it wasn't bad enough that Anya's glares and diatribes were making life pure hell for young Mr. Harris; Willow and Tara had had a HUGE fight and broken up as well.

Miss Maclay had packed her things and moved out of 1630 Revello Drive. Apparently, her girlfriend had been making with the mind-control mojo, violating Tara's brain and reshaping her memories in order to make the blonde witch forget about their fights regarding Willow's constant and quite frankly reckless use of magic. The final straw had come though when Buffy had admitted that her friends had pulled her soul out of Heaven instead of a hell dimension, and Willow had gotten caught trying to do the same thing to Miss Summers in order to 'fix' the situation.

Not only was Xander sickened by the thought of what Willow had willingly chosen to do lately, he now felt ashamed and remorseful of his role in Buffy's resurrection that night as well. These days, thanks to the whitelighter memories he'd retained, Harris understood that Willow had invoked black magicks in order to raise the dead. As if that whole 'puking out snakes' thing hadn't been a big enough clue, but there was a difference between suspecting something and actually knowing it. It was subtle, but it was nonetheless there.

If this had been the 'Charmed' universe, Xander was pretty sure that Miss Rosenberg was on the verge of losing her witch status and becoming a warlock, if she wasn't there already.

And even though he'd banished the thought immediately, Xander had wondered whether maybe, just maybe, they'd all be better off if Buffy had simply stayed dead that night. Still, the mere fact that he'd thought that had indicated to the young man that he needed to get out of town for a while and take a small break from the nightmare which was life on the Hellmouth.

Then, something utterly unexpected had happened; Xander had heard a whitelighter jingle in his ears.

Now, ever since Halloween Xander had appeared to be an ordinary human again – the Zeppo of the group, as Cordelia had put it that day in the man's apartment. As far as Harris knew, he had kept the memories of his alternate persona but that was all, just like last time with the Soldier Guy. So hearing a call from one of his charges had made Xander: (a) freak out a little, and then (b) hop into his car and drive south to the City of Angels.

To the headquarters of Angel Investigations.

As Xander skidded to a halt after passing through the front doors of the hotel, he almost couldn't believe his eyes for a second. The lobby looked like a war zone; there were human bodies strewn around with various vicious stab wounds, all of them dead commandos from the evil law firm, Wolfram & Hart. Xander's eyes widened as he saw one of the bodies actually had chicken feet. "What the hell-?"

That was when he saw the Grapplar demons infesting the hotel, which were under the command of an 18th century demon hunter named Daniel Holtz. One of them quickly grabbed Xander and dragged him over to the boss, who was glaring at Angel and planning his very painful demise, with said vampire being held fast by the minions via some metal clamps on the ends of long sticks attached to Angel's neck and wrists.

"Xander?" the ensouled vampire looked astonished to see the newcomer. "What are you doing here?" ( _And what the hell have you done to yourself? Why do you smell so weird like that?_ )

"A friend of yours, Angelus?" Holtz said in a sneering tone of voice.

"Hey, I wouldn't go that far," Xander grimaced for a moment before forcing himself to focus. He figured the vampire still had his soul, despite what Holtz had just called him; not only was Angel looking worried about what was going on around here, that telltale arrogant smirk was also nowhere in sight. So given the situation, and the fact that Buffy was over eighty miles north right now, there was no choice but to be on the bloodsucker's side. At least for the moment.

"Deadboy? Who's the guy with the sword...who I'm guessing has a serious hate-on for you?" Xander asked as the Grapplar tightened its grip.

"The name is Holtz. Daniel Holtz," the man from the past raised an eyebrow at the 'Deadboy' nickname. "You're an ally of the vampire?"

Grimacing again Xander reluctantly admitted, "Well, yeah, I guess you could sorta say that-"

"Kill him," Holtz ordered his minions emotionlessly.

Xander's eyes went wide as one of the Grapplars came at him with bladed weapon of some sort. He didn't even have time to scream as the demon began to execute the killing strike; but as the weapon hit his neck, something none of them – not even Xander – had been expecting happened.

The dazzling, blinding explosion of blue-white orb lights incapacitated the demons, who fell to the floor with a loud roar of pain. Holtz himself was blinded as well, stumbling back a few paces with astonishment. Then, as Xander's body resumed human form, his first coherent thought was, ( _Okay, it's official; NOW I'm totally freaking!_ )

But Angel, who had suddenly found himself free of the restraints, never hesitated. He started running out of the hotel as fast as he could go, and with nothing keeping him here, Xander quickly followed the vamp to the doors.

THUNK!

Xander screamed in pain, as Holtz's arrow pierced his back. Angel, who still had the pole dangling from his neck even though he had freed his wrists by this time, stopped and turned around. Silently cursing, he lifted Xander into a fireman's carry and with every ounce of his remaining strength, the ensouled vampire ran off into the night.

***

**Dark Alley Off Hyperion Boulevard, Los Angeles**

**Three minutes later**

Cordelia Chase was pretty sure she was suddenly in the middle of a nightmare caused by too much Korean food lately, when Angel showed up carrying a mortally wounded Xander Harris.

She hadn't thought about her ex very often since that training session with Angel nearly a month ago; there had been other things to deal with – such as the return of Darla, Angel's nine-month-pregnant sire. A female vampire who was carrying a human son, one fathered by her favorite childe. The miracle child, as it was known, since ordinarily vampires were unable to either conceive or enter the realm of fatherhood that way.

"OH MY GOD!!" Cordelia yelled, unable to help herself as Angel lowered Harris onto the ground into the front of the car and then finally ripped away the clamp around his neck. "What happened?" she demanded.

"Ow," Wesley moaned as he got up from the ground nearby where he had been knocked aside by Darla just now – who was in the back seat of the car, her water broken and her body undergoing massive contractions. Thus, the female vampire was not paying attention to anything happening outside the vehicle at the moment.

The ex-Watcher instantly spied the new arrival with the arrow in his back, unconscious. "Good Lord, is that Xander Harris?"

"Who did this to him?" Fred demanded. She was furious that someone had attacked her Halloween saviour this way, even if she hadn't seen him for weeks.

"Holtz," Angel said briefly in reply to Fred's question.

"Who?" Gunn asked in confusion.

"Wait a minute, Holtz?" Miss Chase demanded, her excellent memory working overtime to make the connection. "Are we talkin' about that guy you mentioned a few months ago, who tried to kill you – I mean Angelus – like two hundred years ago? THAT Holtz?"

"Yeah. He's actually pretty well preserved for his age," the ensouled vampire quipped, trying to figure out a way to get the arrow out from Xander safely. In his opinion, it was a miracle Harris wasn't dead yet – but then again, Angel knew how this guy had survived on the Hellmouth for over twenty years, even if the odds were that he should have been worm food ages ago. "Damn it, if I take this out, it'll kill him – but if I leave it in, that'll kill him as well!"

"Rock and a hard place," Gunn nodded. He had been there with his own crew often enough, in the days before he had hooked up with Angel's Avengers.

"Take it out," Cordelia suddenly ordered, her pale features now drained of all hope as she stared at Xander. She saw everyone looking at her and said simply, "If I know Xander at all, he'd want to get it over with and not prolong the agony."

Angel hesitated, then did as his seer suggested. As he ripped out the arrow, Xander's body arched spastically, and then everyone's mouths fell down almost to street level as a golden glow emanated out around the small hole in his back. The whitelighter healing factor easily taking care of the injury once the wooden stick was out of the way.

"How in the name of God Almighty..." Wesley started to splutter.

Not surprisingly, Fred was the first to recover. "Oh! Right, I've seen something like this before – back during Halloween. Wesley, after you fell over the railing that night, Alexander, uh, Xander, he healed you. Just like, he, he healed himself..."

"No way!" Cordelia insisted with equal amounts of joy and denial. She had watched a few episodes of the show recently, and thus was familiar with the whitelighter basics at this point. "The big doofus actually kept the powers this time? That's it. Next Halloween, I am SO dressing up as Wonder Woman or something!"

Just then Darla screamed, attracting everyone's attention. "The baby, I think it's coming!"

The Fang Gang gathered around her, Angel staring at the mother of his child worriedly. "We're not safe here. Can you hold on a while longer 'til we can get you to a hospital?"

"No hospitals," Darla gritted out, as the contractions ended for the moment and she got a brief respite from the labor pains. "Neither of us need those damned doctors and nurses asking questions whose answers they'll never be able to believe! Just take me somewhere where I can give birth in peace!"

Angel didn't waste time in reply, he just ordered everyone into the car and the Plymouth roared off right before the Grapplars arrived, out for blood over what had happened to them recently.

***

**Alley north of Caritas, Los Angeles**

**November 29****th****, 2001**

Xander figured that his night couldn't possibly get any stranger, as the rain poured down and he watched Angel hold Darla while she was trying and failing to give birth. Because, as Wesley had recently reminded everyone, her body was not a life-giving vessel; and so, the miracle child was dying now within her undead corpse.

After the Angel-mobile had left the alley Xander had woken up in a demon karaoke bar of all places, a worried Fred and Cordelia constantly asking him if he was okay. Xander's ex had reassured him that the place was a sanctuary and that he was safe here – at least until Holtz had found their hiding spot and firebombed it, that is. But luckily, by that point, everyone had evacuated the club known as Caritas, including the owner of the place named Lorne.

Once outside the charred remains of the establishment, Angel had sent the others to get the Plymouth, but Xander had stayed. Mostly because Darla was the vampire who had killed and turned his then-best friend, Jesse McNally, nearly five years ago.

( _Who'd have thought it'd end up like this?_ ) Harris thought to himself bleakly, the nearby Chinese lanterns lighting up both the alley and Darla's prone form. ( _Here I am with the perfect opportunity to finally avenge Jesse's death, but I can't bring myself to even lift a finger to dust her. She's trying to save her son's life, and it's not the baby's fault who his mother is..._ )

"You're gonna be okay," Angel said desperately to Darla, even though the lie was blatantly obvious even to Xander.

"No. No, I don't think so," Darla replied, having given up all hope of safely delivering her child by now. "Once I've lost the baby, I won't be okay. I won't be okay at all. Angel...our son is gonna die right here in this alley. You died in an alley too, remember? I killed you and brought you into my world, all those centuries ago."

"I remember," was all that the male vampire could say.

"I wanna say I'm sorry," Darla saw Xander staring at her, the man soaked by the rain. "I wanna say it and mean it, but – I can't. We did so many terrible things together," the blonde vampiress turned her attention back to Angel. "So much destruction, so much pain. And we can't ever make up for any of it. You know that, don't you?"

Angel stared at Xander, recalling the bad history between them and a moment later, he said, "Yeah."

"This child – Angel, it's the one good thing we ever did together," Darla said desperately, as Angel lifted her hand between both of his and pressed it against his lips. She could tell that the father of her son was just about to lose it, and the woman suddenly made the only decision she could under the circumstances. "The only good thing. You make sure to tell him that."

Too late, Xander and Angel saw Darla holding a splinter of wood in her hand and then the blonde woman buried it into her chest, gasping. Dust exploded outwards, as the stake pierced the heart and the female vampire was no more.

"HOLY MAMALOOSHIN!!" Xander exclaimed in shock, never having expected something like that in a million years.

Where Darla had been a scant moment ago, there was now only a naked human infant lying in the rain, crying. Angel picked him up in dazed wonder, as Xander took off his jacket and gave it to the ensouled vampire to wrap up the male child with the dry insides.

At that moment, Holtz showed up through the remains of Caritas, crossbow extended. "Angelus."

Xander instantly stepped in front of the vampire and his son. His eyes cold as ice, he looked at the demon hunter and told him, "Get lost right now, pal. Or else one of us is gonna regret it, and it's not gonna be me!"

Holtz didn't reply, his confusion returning with regard to who and what Xander really was and his role in the grand scheme of things. The centuries-old human and the vampire just shared a look, with Angel cradling his newborn son. Slowly, Holtz lowered his crossbow, even if he didn't leave the alley as ordered, with the Grapplars slowly gathering around their current overseer.

Angel's Plymouth pulled up at the other end of the alley and Xander and Angel headed towards it, the baby safe in his father's arms. Holtz made no move to stop them as the unlikely allies headed for the rest of the Fang Gang. His face inscrutable, Daniel was nonetheless surprised when a moment later the timeshifter demon named Sahjhan appeared out of nowhere right beside him.

"Do it! Now's your chance. Do it! Finish it while you still can!" Sahjhan cried out, furious that due to his noncorporeal nature he couldn't just murder the baby himself – do away with the creature that had been prophesized to kill him, over eleven hundred years ago. "You can't just let him walk away! Not now! Not after what you swore to me!"

"I swore to you that I would show no mercy," Holtz replied, thinking of his dead wife and children back in the 1700's; the only reason he'd ever agreed to let Sahjhan put him on ice until the 21st century, when he would get the chance to kill both Angelus and Darla to avenge his family.

"And I won't."

***

**Main Street, Sunnydale**

**Early December, 2001**

As Buffy walked alongside Xander Harris, she found herself wishing that she hadn't taken a pair of scissors to her own hair this morning in response to Spike's recent nickname of "Goldilocks," even though the blonde Slayer had to admit: the new shoulder-length hairstyle she had gotten did look good and certainly made her feel a bit better about herself.

Now, everyone within the Scooby Gang knew that Spike was in love with Buffy and had been long before she had died to save the world and her sister back in May. Despite the lack of a soul, that love was the reason why William had worked with the humans throughout the entire summer, honoring his promise to Buffy to keep Dawn safe. Before her death, the chipped vampire knew the Slayer had appreciated him for what he could do and bring to the cause...

But after her resurrection, Spike had discovered Buffy was free game, so to speak, in that his anti-violence chip didn't work on her anymore. Not long afterwards, after being rebuffed by the woman he loved, William had attacked Buffy one night; and yet once the fight had started, rather than them killing each other – it had turned into a violent orgy of lust and sex instead.

The relationship which had subsequently developed between Buffy and Spike wasn't exactly what you might call a happy one, but constantly having sexual relations with the bleach-blond vampire served its purpose in terms of stemming the huge tide of depression and numbness that constantly threatened to overwhelm the Chosen One. William the Bloody made her FEEL something, and helped keep Miss Summers sane in a way that the others couldn't; Dawn, because Buffy felt she was too needy as well as too young, and the other four because they were the ones who had stolen Heaven from her in the first place.

Sometimes Buffy wondered what her friends and her sister would say if she told them the truth, especially Xander, whose opinions about vampires – ALL vampires – weren't exactly a secret. But not today; right now, Miss Summers had to figure out what to do about the recent disastrous visit by the Department of Social Services, and the social worker who had threatened to take Dawn away from her.

"Penny for your thoughts, Buff?"

Buffy turned around to stare at her male friend with a frown. "Huh? What?"

"I just finished telling you about what happened recently in LA with Angel's son, Connor. But you didn't hear a word I said, did you?" Xander asked, putting away the rather unpleasant memories of helping safeguard the miracle child alongside Angel's Avengers before coming back to home sweet Hellmouth. Still, that long conversation with Cordelia after she had apologized for the whole 'Zeppo' thing had definitely done wonders for them both.

"I'm sorry, Xander," Buffy apologized half-heartedly. "It's just, I-I-"

"You're trying to cope with Willow becoming a magic addict, Dawnie hating both you and Will for what happened at that guy Rack's place, Tara and Anya not exactly being part of the gang anymore, and last but not least me still being in a whitelighter body – otherwise I'd have died myself more than once recently," Xander summarized it pretty well.

"Yeah, that pretty much covers it," the Slayer shrugged. Like the other Scooby women, she had been pretty shocked when Xander had demonstrated the whole orb lights thing last week. Then had come denial, anger and then finally, acceptance.

"So, you gotten a handle on your powers yet?" Buffy asked.

"Naw," Harris admitted sheepishly. "I can't orb, well – at least not deliberately. I can't heal anyone. Can't sense any charges, or glamour my body. I can't even speak whitelighter-ese anymore!" he said in annoyance. He left unspoken the issue of possible whitelighter immortality, though; that was one headache Xander knew both Buffy and himself did not need.

After all, watching everyone that he loved eventually grow old or die while he remained forever young and unchanged? ( _No way, José, sorry but not interested. Because I'm not Alexander, despite how I can still remember everything about that guy's so-called life. _)

As they walked along the street though, Xander suddenly wondered what would happen if one day, far into the future, he developed enough power to be the equivalent of an Elder – and he was therefore able to create other whitelighters. ( _After all, this world's witches definitely need some guidance, and I can't do it all myself no matter how powerful I ever get. And would it be possible to find or set up something like the whitelighter realm in the real world? Might have to talk to someone about that..._ )

As Buffy started talking, this time Xander was the one who drifted off into Neverland and thus, neither of them noticed Warren and Andrew across the street in an alley close to their van. And even if they HAD noticed the Duo of Dorkness, both whitelighter and Slayer most likely wouldn't have paid any attention to them, as the Scooby Gang had no idea what these two had been up to ever since Halloween.

Which included developing an invisibility ray gun, after Jonathan had been unofficially listed as yet another Sunnydale special by the local police department.

"Okay, Obi-wan, now you're clear about the plan?" Mears asked his partner-in-crime.

"Uh, yeah. I guess," Andrew replied nervously. "But I'm kinda scared; what if we get caught?"

( _Not this again! Some Jedi Knight you'd make, you overgrown pseudo-Jawa!_ ) Warren kept a lid on his temper though and said calmly, "We've discussed this before, don't forget – we'll be invisible. Plus, their security's gotten pretty lax," he gestured in the direction of the local women's spa shop. Mears picked up the ray gun and said, "Now come on."

Wells followed his fellow criminal out of the alley but almost instantly hissed, "Uh, Slayer dead ahead!"

Warren swiveled to look, but Andrew accidentally bumped into him and the ray gun went off, sending a burst of hard radiation in the direction of Buffy and Xander. At the last moment before the invisibility ray hit, though, something primal inside Xander's awareness stirred, and grabbing hold of Buffy's shoulder he instinctively orbed them out of the way to safety.

"Shit!" Warren cursed, running back into the depths of the alley and not noticing how a tree, a fire hydrant, and a traffic cone had all disappeared thanks to the red light emanating from the ray gun.

"He orbed! He orbed!" Andrew shrieked, following Warren before the taller man clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Rogue Two, this is Rogue Leader. Newsflash: we don't advertise our presence to the agents of the Empire," Warren hissed at him before letting go.

"Right, right," Andrew calmed down some.

"Now, what the hell were you just talking about?" Mears demanded.

"I saw Xander orb, just like in 'Charmed'! Oooh, Leo Wyatt," Andrew said dreamily, his latent homosexual tendencies briefly surfacing before he shook himself out of it. "I mean, Piper Halliwell! And y'know, I like Phoebe too. It's a pity about Prue leaving the show like that, but still – that Paige girl they brought in to replace her, I think she has possibilities..."

"Andrew! Shut up for a second, will you? And think!" Warren growled. "Did they see us? Have we been made like when the T-1000 spotted John Connor in T2, and he had to run for it out of that mall?"

"No. No, I don't think so," Andrew said hesitantly, shaking his head. "They weren't looking into the alley just then...but, but if Xander's a whitelighter, then it doesn't matter, they'll eventually track us down! I mean, if he's here on assignment from the Elders to watch over Willow – and I guess that Tara girl too – then, then we're gonna end up Borg food somewhere in the Delta quadrant of the galaxy!" Wells yelped fearfully.

It was amazing how both nerds had incorporated various elements of popular entertainment fantasy into their version of reality like this, but that didn't matter. What DID matter was Warren deciding then and there that Xander Harris would have to be dealt with, eventually.

TBC...


	5. Surprise

See Part One for Disclaimer and details. Hey everyone, here's the latest chapter. Now, someone wrote to me saying that they'd love to see a unexpected twist to the storyline, they wanted something to happen which no one was expecting; so to that person I say "trust in the author. The author is good". And of course, to everyone who has reviewed this fanfic, a big thank you as always!

***

**Part Five: Surprise**

**The Espresso Pump, Sunnydale**

**December 23****rd****, 2001**

"You know, I think we ought to form a club of some sort. The, um, the "We Hate Xander and Willow" club! We could even track down those people, Oz and Cordelia, and get them to join – for a nominal fee, of course. A kind of "I hate my ex who hurt me" mutual help society. What do you think?" Anya asked Tara as the blonde witch sipped her mocha latte.

"I, I don't think it'd work," Tara stammered a bit uncertainly. "I mean, I'm pretty sure those two don't hate Xander and Willow anymore. And to be honest I don't exactly hate Willow either, despite what she did to me. Do you really hate Xander, though? I didn't know things had gotten so bad between you, e-ever since the breakup."

Miss Jenkins suddenly looked like she had just sucked on a lemon before she said, "Fine, so I don't really hate him. But he just gets me so mad sometimes-!"

"I know," Tara said simply. She understood that was why Xander didn't hang out at the Magic Box anymore; it always degenerated into a fight with his ex, with or without any customers present. "Do you still love him?"

Anya's eyes started to water. "I loved who he was, y'know, before Halloween. But ever since then – Tara, Xander's just not the same person anymore," the woman confessed in anguish.

"I'm sure that deep down, he still loves you-"

"But that's simply not enough, is it?" Anya interrupted sadly. "See, I've thought about it and I've come to the conclusion that Xander never really accepted my demon past. I mean, the guy has this thing of only seeing what he wants to see, or at least he did before getting possessed that night." Anya frowned, "I think subconsciously Xander used to pretend that I was never really Anyanka, that I just sort of popped into existence as a human after my amulet was smashed three years ago. Y'know, as a-a blank slate so to speak. He just can't handle the fact that I've been around for millennia as a vengeance demon, because – because my ex honestly can't help equating demons with the enemy," she finished up sourly.

"I don't think he's quite that bad," Tara looked a bit uncomfortable.

"Well, Xander couldn't handle the fact that I killed lots of people when I was a demon either," Anya shot back. "I mean, I know that apart from Spike all of you guys get pretty antsy about that particular topic, but I thought that Xander could get past it because he loved me. Still, I guess I was wrong about that."

"He has a, a protector's s-s-spirit," Tara stuttered. "Nothing means more to Xander, than, than protecting the people he loves. I, I guess the whitelighter guardian angel thing just sort of amplified those feelings?"

"Yeah. You're probably right," Anya nodded. "It would certainly explain a lot, anyway." The woman looked around at the establishment's decorations and changing the subject she said, "It's almost Christmas again, isn't it? I remember how last year, we all gathered at Buffy's house for the occasion. It was the first Christmas I ever had when I actually enjoyed myself during the festivities – but not this year. I mean, Joyce is dead now, and that house just doesn't feel all that welcoming to me these days."

Tara nodded. She suddenly had the strangest feeling that there were fewer good days ahead than there were behind, that things were now changing for the worse; and that the traditional upcoming spring apocalypse was going to be one of the worst ones ever.

***

**Mobile lair, Sunnydale**

**January 9****th****, 2002**

"What do you mean, there's no such thing as darklighter poison?!"

The warlock named Rack just shook his head at Andrew sadly, and decided to get him and his friend out of here as soon as possible. "Exactly what I said, kid. Just my opinion, but you two have been watching too much TV lately."

"But whitelighters are real. I mean we've seen it for ourselves, the both of us," Warren insisted, pointing at Andrew. "The orb lights, the healing factor, the whole enchilada!"

"Are you sure?" Rack asked lazily, going to sit down on his couch. "What you saw, was it something like this?" He conjured up a reasonable facsimile of the blue-white lights he'd heard about from these two characters, as they danced about in orbit above his hand.

"No, not exactly," Andrew piped up. "Um, can you conjure up anything else? Like an energy ball, or-or fire? I mean that pyrokinesis thing is way cool on the show-" Andrew started to babble.

"Sorry. But you two have wasted enough of my time," Rack interrupted, sick of the fanboy act. "And I'm sure you know where the door is, so get out."

Warren looked insulted and Andrew cowed at the dismissive tone, but nonetheless, the two geeks did as they were commanded. As soon as they got into the van, though, Warren exploded, "The NERVE of that guy! Treating us as if we were some stupid kids or something!"

Andrew blinked, unsure what to do. He really missed the late member of their little troika, Jonathan, both for his magic knowledge and to provide an alternative target for Warren's wrath at times like this. "So what are we gonna do?"

Warren didn't answer until they had arrived back at the Mears residence. And once the two males were in the basement he said, "We're gonna have to do something else to neutralize the target, before we can put HIM up to bat in the game." The mechanical genius nodded towards the immobile form of the Xander-bot he had recently created.

"Right. Right. Uh, what exactly?" Wells asked in confusion, eyeing the deactivated machine uncertainly.

"Come on, do I have to think of everything myself around here? Summon a demon that'll deal with that goody two-shoes already!" Mears snapped, before he checked his watch. "I have an errand to run, I'll be back soon. And I expect a full report by the time I return, Number One."

Andrew was just glad his Captain Picard hadn't called him 'counselor', as he much preferred being Warren's Commander Riker rather than his Deanna Troi. After Warren left, the sycophantic little man dug out his flute and began to summon something that he hoped would be able to take care of the whitelighter problem.

Too bad for Andrew that Janus, who had been keeping an eye on Wells and his remaining partner ever since Jonathan had died, suddenly saw the perfect opportunity to throw a spanner in the works as he amplified the generic summoning spell's power – and then sat back with a grin to watch what would happen.

***

**Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles**

**A few moments later**

Angel was, quite frankly, having one hell of a panic attack. Primarily because he had recently learned that Cordelia was dying: the visions had been causing ever-increasing damage to her brain ever since Miss Chase had inherited them, and his seer was currently unconscious and getting worse with every passing second.

Lorne and Wesley had told him that the blackout after her latest vision was mystical as well as physical in nature, but that didn't mitigate Angel's anger at Cordelia for deliberately deceiving him this way for over a year. The migraine medication he and the others had discovered the vision girl was taking was so high-strength, Miss Chase's birthday celebration had turned into a high-stakes blame game and pity party.

The Champion had tried everything he could think of to help Cordy, of course. Angel had gotten Lorne to check with his sources, he had asked Wesley to do the research thing, the vampire had even gone up against the Conduit – the formless invisible entity with a direct connection to the Powers That Be – but it had all been for nothing. Cordelia was still doing a great impersonation of a vegetable, and now the only hope left was that Xander Harris – who was currently racing to the hotel in his car, after Angel had called him in Sunnydale – would be able to access the whitelighter healing ability and pull off a miracle.

"I'm here, where is she?" Xander's worried voice came from the front doors as Angel leapt up in gratitude and anticipation.

"Right over there. Xander, please hurry-" the vampire started to say.

But Harris never got the chance to do anything, because Cordelia's body suddenly began to glow with white light.

"What the hell-?" Gunn exclaimed, instinctively backing away and grabbing Fred along for the ride.

"What's happening to her?" Miss Burkle fought to get free of Gunn's embrace, looking fearfully at her comatose friend.

"I've never seen anything like this before," Wes looked astonished and fascinated, before pulling himself together. "Mr. Harris, are you-?"

"I told ya before, Wes, call me Xander. And no, I'm not doing anything," Harris suddenly frowned as his instincts suddenly started screaming dire warnings at him. "Everyone, get back! I think something's gonna-"

And that was when lightning started exploding in all directions out of Cordelia's body, thanks to Janus meddling with Andrew's demon summons.

The blue-white lightning bolts started crashing into the walls and ceiling, smashing various parts of the lobby into little pieces and in general doing more damage than Holtz had done the night Connor had been born. Everyone dived to get out of the way, as the Highlander-style electrical storm ravaged the abandoned hotel with cruel force and intensity.

Finally, Cordelia's body exploded into white light – and when everyone's vision cleared, Miss Chase was nowhere to be seen.

Somewhere up in a higher dimension, the entity which would have been called Jasmine screamed in fury as its plans were suddenly and completely derailed; just before the rest of its peers converged on it to confront the rogue Power on breaking their highest law regarding interference in the mortal realm.

***

**Mears residence, Sunnydale**

**A minute later**

Andrew was feeling pretty dazed as the brunette demon princess, or goddess, or whatever she really was, shimmered out of existence.

It had been the most intense demonic summons he had ever performed, the young man realized. A power Andrew hadn't recognized or anticipated being present had boosted his abilities to a level he had never achieved before, and never would again. The ritual had almost drained his energy completely, but somehow he'd managed to finish the job and in the end, someone who looked like Cordelia Chase had stood before him in some kind of purple harem girl outfit.

He had instantly recognized the former 'Queen C' of Sunnydale High, of course; no student who had ever attended that demolished high school could have failed to do so. But oddly, she hadn't responded to the name 'Cordelia'; the woman had referred to herself merely as the Seer, and demanded to know where she was and what she was doing here.

Andrew, in his own tongue-tied way, had explained that he had summoned her to help him and his partner deal with a whitelighter. That had caught the Seer's interest; but then her eyes had gone wide, and she had vanished out of the basement.

"You have utterly no idea just how much you've really screwed things up for everybody, do you?"

Andrew whirled around, only to encounter one of the strangest demons he had ever seen. Tall, almost impossibly so, with silver armour and horns everywhere. "Uh, what?"

"Where is she?" the demon named Skip asked simply.

"Um, you mean the Seer? She, she's not here anymore," Andrew stammered. "She just sorta disappeared..."

Skip just stared at the human, his anger growing with every passing second. The song and dance act the demon had been hired to perform had been going along perfectly; the stupid little girl he had pretended to befriend on the astral plane had almost been ready to sign on the bottom line and willingly let him transform her mind and body, in order to hang onto the visions and help her pet vampire. Not to mention inadvertently pave the way for Cordelia to eventually be possessed by Jasmine, and end up a brain-dead shell by 2003.

In Skip's mind it was almost laughable, really, just how easy the job had been going. At least until this ASSHOLE had interfered and screwed up the whole thing.

"Where'd she go?" Skip finally asked.

"I don't know, she didn't say," Andrew replied truthfully.

"Ya know what? I believe you," Skip said slowly. Just before his huge silver hands reached out and snapped Andrew's neck with a loud CRACK!, the corpse falling lifelessly to the floor. "You moron."

"And here I'm thinking that's my cue right there."

Skip whirled around, his eyes narrowing as he spied a fellow demon. "Hey Whis," he said carefully. "What are you doing here?"

Whistler just shook his head sadly. "Skip, Skip, Skip. I swear, did you ever back the wrong horse on this one! And despite everything, I'm actually kinda sorry about this – pal." The balance demon then vanished.

"What are you..." was all that Skip could say, before the mercenary demon found himself screaming in a cage lacking any doors or keys and his silver body burning within an eternal fire, in a state of agony that would never end.

Outside the cage, Janus just couldn't stop laughing over what had happened thanks to his machinations lately.

***

**Pyramid-shaped tomb, Blessed Memories Cemetery, Sunnydale**

**The same time**

The Guardian of the Slayer line was ready to do something she hadn't done in over ten thousand years of existence. Namely, give up.

The old woman had failed, utterly failed, to guide Xander onto a path of her choosing. The Slayer line and legacy was thus teetering at the whim of Fate, and she knew Fate could be a very fickle thing on occasion. In any case, for the first time since her sisterhood had started helping the Chosen, the Guardian knew that things had slipped completely out of her control; and she couldn't do this alone, not anymore. Like it or not, she needed help.

"Yeah, and don't I know it."

The white-haired old woman whirled around, surprised to see a second visitor in almost as many months. "Who are you?"

"You can call me the Seer," the brunette female said silkily, as she walked around the tomb and saw all the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs which acted as a mystical barrier against detection. "Nice artwork. Haven't seen anything like it in centuries."

"You're a demon of some sort," the Guardian quickly realized, recalling her last visitor's cryptic words. Like other women before her, including Buffy Summers, her annoyance with Whistler suddenly escalated exponentially. "I'm having far too many demon visitors in here these days-"

"I'm a seer. Want me to tell you how you're going to die, if you don't listen to me? It happens right here where we're standing, in about eighteen months. This crazy preacher tainted by an evil so old I can't even describe it, he snaps your neck like a twig. Just like that mercenary demon would have killed the idiot amateur who summoned me into existence by now," the Seer momentarily wrinkled her nose in distaste.

The Guardian went pale before saying, "And if I do listen to you?"

The Seer shook her head. "That's a real gray area. Just like what'll happen to your Vampire Slayers, if that evil THING I foresaw isn't stopped from turning this entire world into a wasteland."

The Guardian felt a brief chill. "Are you talking about the First Evil?"

"Is that what you people call it?" In response to the Guardian's look she added, "Seer here, okay? I'm not omnipotent, I don't know everything! I don't even know if you're going to agree to my little proposal, even though you should if you don't want that future I just mentioned to come about."

The white-haired old woman just stared at her companion. "What proposal is this you speak of?"

"I save all your girls from the big nasty evil, and you don't interfere with what I intend to claim as my own," the Seer began to negotiate with the older woman.

"And just what is it you intend to claim as your own?" the Guardian remained carefully noncommittal.

"An angel," the Seer had Cordelia's brilliant megawatt smile plastered all over her face.

"My very own guardian angel."

***

**Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles**

**A while later**

Xander was examining the CAT scans on Wesley's desk, and then looked up to face the ex-Watcher and current head of Angel Investigations. "You wanna know what the worst part is? Before Halloween, all this would have been pure gobbledygook to me. And right now, I'm kinda wishing it still was."

"Yes, quite," Wyndham-Pryce sighed. "If only Cordelia hadn't – but then, what-ifs and if-onlys aren't going to help any of us now, are they?"

"I'm thinking not," Harris shrugged, getting up and pacing around the office a little. "I never got the chance to talk to you alone the last time I was here, when Connor was born, but – you've changed, Wes. You're not that useless, stuck-up weasel I knew back in Sunnydale anymore. LA's been good for you, huh?"

"Yes. And thank you so much for that particular stroll down memory lane," Wesley grunted. "Still, you're right. I made a rather poor showing of things back in Sunnydale, and in retrospect, it's no wonder why Buffy rejected my presence there in no uncertain terms."

"Yeah, about that – maybe when the current crisis is over, you could give me some advice about what to do regarding the Buffster," Xander cogitated slowly. "Ever since she came back from the dead, she's been – different."

"Different, how? And in any case I can't help thinking my advice to you would be worth bugger-all, to be brutally honest. Lord knows if I'd been a better Watcher, Faith wouldn't have spiraled down into the depths of the abyss that way," Wes made a face as he recalled the dark Slayer.

"She's still in jail, right?" Xander asked out of mild curiosity.

"Stockton Women's Penitentiary. Currently serving twenty-five to life," Wesley said stiffly. The memories of being tortured by that particular brunette were not fond ones, after all. "Angel visits her every so often, he still thinks Faith can be redeemed – saved from the darkness..." Wesley suddenly straightened up. "By the way, I'd like to thank you for saving Fred last Halloween – and saving me from myself as well."

"Uh, well, y'know, Wesley – that, that was just me doing my part for the team," Xander said in embarrassment. "Same as I always do for the gang back home."

"No, it's not that simple. Because I can still remember everything which happened that night, I haven't forgotten doing my best to kill you – and her," Pryce confessed uncomfortably. Wesley knew he had to finally get this off his chest, once and for all. "I'm sorr-"

"CORDELIA!!!" Fred's ecstatic shout was easily heard within the private office, and so both men instantly rushed outside.

Miss Burkle was about to run over and embrace what looked like her best friend, who had just shimmered into existence, when Angel's arm stopped her. "Fred! Hold on a second. That's not the Cordelia we know. It can't be; she doesn't smell human, not anymore." The vampire stared with frightening intensity at the purple-clad Seer.

"Well, don't you know how to make a girl feel all special?" the Seer asked with a smirk, looking around the hotel and starting to take a little tour of the lobby.

Angel knew beyond all shadow of a doubt that something was very wrong here. Because Cordelia Chase didn't walk like that; she walked like a queen, not some kind of seductress. "Who are you?"

The demon Andrew had summoned into existence with Janus's help, and who was currently wearing Cordelia's face and form, turned to stare at the ensouled vampire. "You can call me the Seer, if you like. After all, that's what the Source of All Evil used to call me," she said with a wink, before turning to face a shell-shocked and extremely pale Xander Harris. Someone who, using Alexander's memories, had instantly identified who and what stood before him.

"But as for you, whitelighter, you can call me – Kira."

The sexual predator look on Kira's face, as she stared at the demon magnet object of her affections, was almost enough to drive poor old Angel completely batty.

***

**Mears residence, Sunnydale**

**The same time**

Warren finally came back from his errand, and the first thing the young man saw when he entered the basement was Andrew's body laying at an unnatural angle on the floor. The remains had already begun to enter into rigor mortis, even if the smell of death was still absent.

The last remaining member of the troika instantly thought to himself, ( _Shit. How did this happen? Oh, man, I betcha some demon or other killed him, so good thing I wasn't here! But now I'm going to have to bury him somewhere. Crap! Why couldn't he have just exploded or something, the same way Jerkathan did?_ )

Grumbling to himself, Warren started looking around in the basement for a shovel. It looked like he was going to have a busy evening at one of Sunnydale's cemeteries, at least for a while.

TBC...


	6. Confrontations

See Part One for Disclaimer and details. Hey everyone, here's the latest chapter. It's a bit longer than usual, but I hope you'll stick with it till the very end! Oh, and a vrtual cookie to anyone who spots the sort-of-implied crossover in this chapter. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed as always, this story is now officially in the top ten of my highest reviewed fanfics. Whoo-hoo! Please, keep 'em coming. And now...

***

**Part Six: Confrontations**

**The Bronze, Sunnydale**

**January 9****th****, 2002**

The nightclub was packed tonight, the same way it was most nights, as this was the Hellmouth and there was no other place to go in Sunnydale if you were a teenager or young adult. Or, if you were a vampire just wanting a quick snack.

That was one reason why Buffy the Vampire Slayer was here tonight; she knew the Bronze was prime hunting ground for the town's undead population. But she was also here for another reason; to finally drag Willow out of the house, as in her opinion, the redhead had been hiding within 1630 Revello Drive for far too long now.

"Okay. Now isn't this more fun than just staying in your room and staring at four walls?" the Chosen One asked her companion over the noise of the crowd and the music.

"I guess," Willow said morosely. "It's just everything I did, everyone I hurt – especially Dawn – I still can't forgive myself for it, Buffy. I'm just glad Giles and Ms. Calendar weren't here to see this," the redhead thought of her high school mentors in obvious shame. "I haven't done any magic in thirty days, but it barely feels like thirty minutes – and I still can't fight off the shakes sometimes..." The young woman had finally hit rock bottom with regard to the mystical mojo, and had sworn off doing any more spells for the foreseeable future.

"You'll get through it," Buffy comforted her as best she could. "Besides, Dawn can't stay mad at you forever, right?"

"Hey look! There's Anya and Tara," Miss Rosenberg pointed towards an alcove, changing the subject.

"Okay, let's join them."

"I can't. Buffy, I can't face Tara again, not after what I did to her," Willow said, shaking her head.

"Well, you can't exactly hide from her for the rest of your life either," Buffy said with a hint of exasperation.

"Uh, why not?" Willow asked pessimistically.

"Well, because – because – well, you just can't, that's why!" Miss Summers retorted, argumentative logic never being her strong point. So she grabbed Willow by the arm and took her over to their friends.

"Buffy. Willow," Tara said a bit stiffly to her ex-girlfriend.

"Uh, hi," Willow didn't seem to know what else to say. After all, pleading with her beloved for a return to relationship status didn't seem like the wisest move just now.

"So. How are you guys doing?" Buffy tried to break the ice a little.

"Buffy, you know exactly how I'm doing. The Magic Box is having a very profitable financial quarter, even if your training schedule in the back room does tend to disrupt the flow of business a lot," Anya replied bluntly with a rather confused look on her face.

( _That whole 'casual topic of conversation' thing still is a work in progress for you, huh?_ ) Willow thought to herself. "That's good, I guess. Heard anything from Giles?"

Anya ignored Tara's sudden sharp glance towards Willow. "No. He really has become a silent overseas partner in the business, which I personally think is all for the best. Hopefully, I'll soon have enough money to be able to buy him out completely if he should ever turn up in Sunnydale again."

"Speaking of people turning up, does anyone know where Xander's gone off to tonight?" Buffy asked.

"Oh, yeah. He called the house earlier on, Buff – said that Angel called him and that he was heading for Los Angeles, there's some kind of emergency going on there," Willow said absently, her attention still focused on Tara.

"He's gone to LA AGAIN?" Anya asked crossly. "I swear, Xander should just move to that city permanently. It's like he spends over half his time there nowadays!"

"She, she's got a point," Tara spoke up, uncomfortable with Willow's longing stare and her own conflicted feelings.

"Well, it could be that Xan just wants some company from the Y side of things," Buffy shrugged. "Ever since Giles left, he's been like the only guy left in our little group."

"Uh, what about Spike?" Willow asked in confusion, as Tara and Anya nodded and stared at Buffy.

"He, he doesn't really count," Buffy looked away. "I mean yeah, he's useful for some things, like tonight he's keeping Dawn company at the house-"

"You mean, while he's over there at the bar?" Anya pointed out, as Buffy whirled her head around and saw that unmistakable leather duster and platinum-blonde head.

"DAMN IT! You guys, stay put," the Slayer hissed, getting out of the booth and storming over to where the vampire stood. "What the hell are you doing here?" Miss Summers tried not to yell at her secret lover. "You're supposed to be at home keeping an eye on Dawn!"

"I AM keepin' an eye on her, pet." Spike nodded to the dance floor, where the former Key appeared to be having the time of her life dancing with some boy her own age.

"What the-? Dawn's here as well?!" Buffy tried to quell the rage developing within her. "Spike, I thought I explained this to you. That social worker put me on probation, remember? I had to promise her that Dawn would do her homework at nights and stop skipping school during the day! My God, if that woman walked in here right now and saw Dawn acting like this, then I'd lose custody of my little sister in a heartbeat!"

"Oh, come on luv," Spike tried to calm her down. "What are the odds of that happening? Besides, the Li'l Bit was going stir crazy inside that bloody house, and you know it. Just a few minutes to unwind a little in 'ere isn't gonna hurt! All work 'n no play..."

"-means that I should have known better than to rely on you," Buffy told him icily. "What was I thinking? Oh yeah, the fact that Xander wasn't available meant you were the only choice. Guess I'll know better next time, huh?"

Spike grew somewhat angry at hearing that, he simply couldn't help it. He might be in love with the Slayer, but he was still a soulless vampire. "Fine. You want that useless git to baby-sit the nibblet instead o' me, be my guest. I can make do with seeing you alone at my crypt, anyway," he suddenly sent her a rather lewd grin.

Unfortunately, the only response William got from the irate Buffy was a look of disgust. "Is that all you think about? Is that all you CARE about?"

Spike could instantly tell he'd made a serious blunder. "No, 'course not-"

But it was too late as Buffy added, "You know, maybe I should just ask Xander to take over your role in my life? After all, everyone knows he's always had a thing for me, and he's been broken up with Anya long enough nowadays to be considered free game. Plus, I betcha my mom would have preferred for me to choose him instead of you! I mean, God, you should have seen her face when she first found out that you were in love with me," Buffy said bitingly the British vampire. "Not to mention the fact that Xander's a lot closer to Dawn these days than he used to be. Yeah, have fun at your crypt Spike, 'cause you know what? I might not be around for a while."

With that, the blonde Slayer whirled around to grab Dawn and drag her home kicking and screaming, if she had to. Spike just stood there, shattered, and just for a moment, he wished that Buffy had indeed staked him in the Magic Box back during Halloween. At least then he wouldn't have had to listen to this, and be made to feel so, so –

Banishing that line of thought, William the Bloody felt his determination creep back, as he straightened up and glowered. ( _Bloody chit thinks I'm not good enough for her now? We'll see about that, AND about Droopy Boy..._ )

***

**Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles**

**The same time**

"You, you can't be here, this is impossible. You don't exist!" Xander shouted, pointing at the Seer.

"And yet, here am I anyway. You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think you weren't glad to see me," Kira smirked back in his direction.

( _What, what's going on?_ ) Fred Burkle looked and felt utterly confused, staring back and forth between the whitelighter and the demon seer, and then at Angel for a moment. Fred could tell that the vampire looked pretty stressed right now. ( _If this isn't Cordelia, then-then who is she?_ )

"Uh, Alexander? You know who this person is, if she's not Cordelia?" Miss Burkle finally asked hesitantly.

"I told ya before, Fred, the name's Xander. Alexander was the whitelighter who showed up on Halloween..." Xander trailed off, eyes still fixed upon the Seer.

"You mean, this is another character from that TV show?!" Gunn exploded in disbelief, having a big burst of insight and staring at the demon woman. "I don't fricking believe this!" Then he paused and looked contemplative for a second. "Yo, Harris. Any chance you can arrange for that stripper Tyra Banks plays on TV to show up as well?" Charles then yelped as Fred elbowed him in the side. "Ow!"

"Err, not that I've ever watched any episodes of the show, but I'm pretty sure I've never heard of you from Cordelia, who-who does watch it. And how is it that a demon from 'Charmed' can possibly look like her?" Wesley started to ask.

"I can't answer the second question, and as for the first one? I won't be showing up on TV for a few years yet. And when I do, some actress named Kendall something-or-other will play me before I get vanquished – which really sucks, you know?" Kira looked annoyed for a moment.

"How did you get here?" Angel demanded roughly. "And where's Cordelia?"

"I got here by magic, of course," Kira told him. "And Cordelia's right here," she pointed at her forehead. "I can hear her in my head right now, as a matter of fact."

"You've got one chance. Get out of Cordelia's body right this instant, and I won't kill you," the ensouled vampire threatened her at once.

"Excuse me, Mr. Lame Excuse For A Vampire? You can't vanquish me," the Seer told him in annoyance. "Or rather you could, but you won't, because you'd be killing your precious Cordelia as well. Don't you get it? This is MY body, pal. She's the houseguest here, not me!"

Xander, who up until now had been fairly quiet, shouted at Kira angrily, "ENOUGH!" Whitelighter lightning began to dance out of his fingertips, as Harris instinctively raised his hands in a very menacing way.

Quick as a flash, Kira ignited an energy ball in the palm of her right hand. She cocked her arm back and said, "Three hundred years as a seer, I've never killed anybody before. But there's always a first time for everything! Honey, I don't want to hurt you – but that doesn't mean I won't," Kira warned Xander honestly.

"Okay, that's it. TIME OUT!" a male voice said loudly from the other side of the room. Everyone turned to see Whistler dressed in his customary clothing, standing near the front doors. "Both of you, put a lid on it. Or else someone is gonna regret it, and it's not gonna be me!"

Xander scowled at hearing his own words to Holtz that night parroted back to him. "Who are you?"

"Whistler," Angel answered the question, recognizing his sponsor from many years ago. "I'm glad you're here-"

"Newsflash, blood breath – but I'm not," Whistler glared at his former protégé as Xander and Kira finally stood down from the hostilities. "Do you have any idea what the Powers did to me, once my star pupil lost his soul and joined Team Evil back then? It makes your little vacation in Hell look like an all-expenses-paid trip to the Caribbean, I'm telling you!"

"Uh – sorry?" Angel looked contrite and apologetic.

"Well, in the vampire's defense, who could have guessed how banging that Slayer of his would make the guy perfectly happy? It's not like Tall, Dark and Brooding here was a virgin back then or anything," the Seer quipped with a smirk.

"Not helping!" Fred hissed at her, even if she was still a bit confused regarding that whole 'Buffy and Angel' thing.

"Who is this guy?" Gunn asked, gesturing to Whistler and looking confused himself.

"A balance demon, if I'm not mistaken," Wesley answered him, eyes narrowed. "One who, if I recall Mr. Giles's entries in the Watcher Diaries correctly, works directly for the Powers That Be?"

"Used to work directly for the Powers, fella," Whistler frowned. "Time was, I was their number one go-to guy, but now thanks to him..." the demon pointed at Angel, "...the smart money's saying I'm gonna be on their shit list for at least the next thousand years."

"So what are you doing here?" Xander demanded bluntly, ignoring Angel's expression at hearing that.

"Messenger duty, kid. And you of all people ought to know about that particular headache, right?" Whistler asked rhetorically. "Okay, people, here's the deal. Angel, the hot demon babe here is your new seer-"

"Like hell," Angel interrupted furiously. "I want Cordelia back, right now!"

"We all do," Wesley glanced around, speaking on behalf of the group. "So tell us how to undo what was done to her. Otherwise, you may as well leave immediately."

Whistler shook his head, sometimes he really hated his job. "You can't undo what was done to her. Sorry but no one can, not anymore."

"What do you mean?" Xander demanded.

"You tell 'em. I'm suddenly feeling seriously parched here," Whistler nodded to Kira and headed for the small fridge in the corner.

"Okay, here it is. I'm here because of a spell," the Seer started to explain, her eyes trained on Xander. "You have enemies back home who found out what you are, and they wanted to take you out, so this idiot nerd tried to summon a darklighter or something to deal with you. Luckily, your old pal Janus stepped in, and hey presto! The summoning spell created me instead," Kira finished up, noting how pale Xander's features had suddenly gone.

"So, uh, w-why exactly can't we reverse the process?" Wesley demanded, leaving aside the other issues for now.

"Only the man who summoned me into existence could undo the spell, and that's assuming Janus could be convinced to play his part too, of course. But problem is, that guy's dead now. That Skip character killed my so-called creator in his basement not long ago," Kira briefly looked disgusted.

"Skip? You mean the demon who was guarding that guy Billy, inside that cube of fire?" Angel spoke up.

"Yeah. And I got news for you, dummy, that particular demon was playing you for a sucker all along," Whistler rejoined the group with a beer in his hand. "What, don't tell me you thought you actually beat Skip in that fight fair and square? He took a dive that night, and you obviously fell for it. Hook, line and sinker."

"I don't get it," Fred said. "Why, why would this Skip demon do that?"

"All part of his boss's master plan," Kira said with a frown.

"Yeah, one that's no longer operational, thank God. Luckily, the Powers have cleaned up their own mess for once," Whistler grimaced.

"It's true. Or else, otherwise?" Kira pointed at Fred. "You, dead March 2004." She ignored Fred's stricken look and said to Gunn and Wes, "You and you, dead two months later; and on the same night, no less." She turned to Angel, "And you? Gotta love the symbolism, but you would have gone out trying to slay a dragon with a sword about ten minutes later!"

"What about Cordelia, Seer?" Xander almost snarled at her, as Angel looked over in horror towards where the baby Connor lay sleeping in the next room. The undead father had certain responsibilities now, after all.

"Oh, she would have died in her sleep a few months before the rest of them. After rotting in a coma for ages, that is," Kira said vaguely with a look of distaste.

"You're lying!!" Angel told her, refusing to accept what he was hearing.

"No, she's not," Whistler told him rudely. "And if you ever bothered to take your head out of your ass for once, you'd know it too. Wake up, you undead idiot! You've been a puppet ever since the night you came back from Acathla's hell dimension, three years ago. Ever since that outcast Power responsible for all this, the so-called puppet master up there, took over your so-called destiny and brought you back from the abyss – just to be her patsy."

"You know what? I don't care," Xander told him, once again ignoring the expression on Angel's face. "All I care about is getting Cordelia back. So are you gonna help us with that or not?"

"I don't have to," the balance demon told him. "Your cheerleader ex is still in there, she can surface any time Little Miss Prophetess lets her do it."

"Let us talk to her. NOW," Angel glowered at the Seer.

The demon shrugged, and lowered her head for a moment. Suddenly, her head snapped up; and the human soul of Cordelia Chase screamed.

"GET OUT OF MY BODY!" the young woman yelled as loudly as she could, grabbing hold of her hair and yanking at it this way and that.

"Cordy, are you all right?" Xander asked before anyone else had the chance to do so.

"DOES IT LOOK LIKE I'M ALL RIGHT, YOU IDIOT?!" she shouted at him furiously, before Miss Chase stopped pulling her own hair and the woman calmed down a bit. Cordelia then looked to Angel, "How can you live like this? How do you cope with having a damned demon there in your head, ALL THE TIME?"

"Don't worry. We're gonna help you, girl-" Gunn started to say just as Angel opened his mouth to reply that it wasn't easy.

"You can't help me, Gunn, no one can! Don't you get it yet? Demon Girl didn't lie to you guys about a thing; I know, because I can hear her thoughts. I'm stuck like this for the rest of my life," Cordelia said hopelessly, despair settling over her like a shroud. "And I swear to you all – in the afterlife, if I ever find that guy who did this to me? I am SO gonna get medieval on his ass!"

"No. I don't accept this," Xander said at once, his face a grim mask of denial.

"Neither do I," Angel added in agreement. "No way in hell!"

Cordelia abruptly lowered her head as Kira took over, then the demon seer raised her eyes to Xander's. "Well, too bad, but there's nothing you or anyone else can do about it. And geez, d'you think I'M happy about this? This is my life we're talking about as well, you know. And just for the record, I'm getting really tired of listening to that girl's whining!" Kira absently rubbed her forehead.

"Well, well, how would YOU like it if Cordelia was the one in charge, and you had to just watch helplessly like that all the time?" Fred demanded.

"It's all about balance," Whistler spoke up suddenly. He looked at Xander, "Go ahead, kid. I think you know what to do."

Harris suddenly realized what the balance demon was talking about even as Kira said, "What are you..." Then she got her own flash of insight. "Oh, NO WAY!"

"It's either this or eventually you hit the road, sweetheart. And spend the rest of your life alone constantly listening to her screaming at you, 'cause I'm telling you right now, this guy? He'll never accept your presence in his life otherwise," Whistler said simply, pointing at Xander. "And you don't need to be a seer to know that I'm right about that!"

"Xander, what are they talking about?" Angel wanted to know.

Harris didn't reply, he just said to Kira, "Let Cordelia take over. Now."

The Seer hesitated, but soon acquiesced as Miss Chase assumed control. "I know what you're planning to do, I heard her thinking about it," the brunette said, eyes wide. "But Xander, are you sure about this?!"

"Sure about what?" Angel looked annoyed over how no one was answering his questions.

"Alexander knew all about the Seer, Cor – the demons she helped with her visions, and the guys like Zankou who she slept with. I won't leave you to suffer because of her demon appetites," Xander said determinedly. He then closed his eyes and tried to access his powers.

Despite having had months to get used to this, Xander Harris still wasn't very good at the whole whitelighter thing. Mostly, it was due to his trying to deny the freakiness of what had happened to him. And if his friends came to understand how he wasn't the Zeppo anymore, the so-called "normal guy" of the group? Then the young man would also finally have to admit to himself that these days he was pretending to be something he wasn't.

Namely, a mortal man.

Xander Harris wasn't human now, and hadn't been ever since his death and resurrection on Halloween. And somewhere deep down, Xander still rebelled against that thought with all his heart and soul.

Still, there was no space for personal hang-ups here and now. A whitelighter's healing ability was triggered by the emotion of love; and so Xander let go, recalling what it was like when he had finally realized that he loved the head cheerleader of Sunnydale High back during senior year.

"Look at that!" Fred's excited yelp echoed in the room. It was obvious she never got tired of seeing that golden glow emanating from his hands.

"It's amazing," Wesley agreed, watching the light show as it enveloped Cordy's body.

"I dunno about y'all, but I'm thinking maybe we should ask this guy to join up with us full-time," Gunn said. He was a pragmatic soul, and knew the group needed a supernatural medic on hand for the constant life-threatening injuries.

"What's he doing?" Angel looked concerned. Not that he thought Xander would deliberately harm Cordelia, but his perceptions were colored by a past that the rest of the Fang Gang didn't share. Well, apart from Wesley, of course, but he had never interacted all that much with Xander back then anyway.

As the golden light faded away Whistler said, "Well, I'll be! He actually healed her human half..."

"What does that mean?" Fred asked, as she saw Xander step back.

"Half-human, half-demon from now on. Pretty much what that asshole Skip would have done to me anyway," Cordelia said, before she cocked her head. "Hey! That's not gonna cut it anymore, just trying to take over like that!" the brunette woman apparently started talking to herself. "We're gonna have to work out some sort of agreement here, missy. Some kinda timeshare and 'live and let live' arrangement. Understood?"

"Fine," Kira grumbled, briefly glaring at Xander as Cordelia allowed her to resume control of their body.

"Cordelia?" Angel asked uncertainly, staring at his seer.

"Yeah, right here. And I'm feeling much better now, thanks to Xander," Cordy took over again and sent a huge smile to her former boyfriend, quickly hugging him.

( _Hey! Don't let this perfect opportunity just go to waste – cop a feel of that yummy-looking ass!_ ) the Seer demanded lustfully as Xander returned the hug.

( _Shut up. And stop thinking of Xander like that,_ ) Cordelia forcefully ordered her counterpart as the hug ended and she stepped away.

( _We're on a level playing field now, remember?_ ) Kira thought somewhat mockingly. ( _And come on, are you trying to tell me that I want him and you don't? Or are you just afraid of the competition, that he'll actually end up preferring me to you after everything you did to him – however justified it may have felt to you at the time..._ )

"I said SHUT UP!" Cordelia barked out loud, and then winced in embarrassment as everyone looked at her. "Sorry. Roommate issues."

"I know what you mean," Angel nodded slowly, remembering his own early days after Darla had rejected his ensouled self during the 19th century. "I'm sorry, Cordy."

"Oh, please, it could have been worse. At least my demon isn't a psychotic mass murderer," Miss Chase said dismissively.

"Hey! Now I resent that," Kira surfaced briefly as Angel just stared at the brunette.

"Why? It's actually a compliment," Cordelia retorted, even though it looked to everyone else like she was talking to herself.

"This – is gonna take some getting used to," Fred shook her head. "I mean, if I didn't know better I-I'd think Cordelia was schizophrenic or something..."

"She's right. We're gonna have to watch out for that sort of thing whenever we're in public," Kira said.

"Not a problem," Cordelia replied dismissively, again ignoring the strange looks on the faces of the others. "As if I of all people don't know how to maintain appearances!"

"Well, I'd say my job here is done. And don't forget, Seer – you got promises to keep, and a job to do," Whistler said warningly, before he vanished out of the hotel.

"What's he talking about?" Angel demanded at once.

"That's private, so don't ask," the half-breed woman replied at once.

"Who are we talking to? Cordelia or the Seer?" Wesley demanded.

"Right now, it's both of us." The brunette female looked at Xander, both Kira and Cordelia recalling the bargain made with the Guardian; in exchange for helping safeguard the Slayer line from the forces of evil, the old woman would not do anything to stop Xander from becoming the focus of the Seer's desire.

As she continued to stare at her one-time boyfriend, Cordelia had to admit (privately, at least) that Kira actually had a point; Xander Harris looked a lot more attractive to her now than he used to in the old days.

***

**Blessed Memories Cemetery, Sunnydale**

**February 25****th****, 2002**

As Xander patrolled with Buffy, he couldn't help wondering what on earth would happen next.

Things had been pretty weird ever since the night where that fusion of both Cordelia and Kira had come into his life. First, there had been the traditional disaster with Buffy's 21st birthday celebration, with Dawn inadvertently making a Wish to an undercover vengeance demon and trapping them all inside the house with a rampaging monster on the loose.

Then had come the time where Xander had thought that if he didn't know better, Buffy was either hitting on him or trying to make a boyfriend jealous. But as far as he was concerned the first option was laughable, given their past history, and the second one was untenable, due to Willow and Dawn both reassuring him the Slayer was currently single. So Harris had put it all down to Miss Summers briefly going 'odd' from starting her new job at the local Doublemeat Palace.

Finally, there had been that incident in Los Angeles with the Blinnikov World Ballet Corps, where the exact same people had been performing "Giselle" that Angelus had seen back in 1890. Which was due to a temporal shift being maintained by the evil owner of the company, a man named Count Kurskov. Xander, Angel, Fred, Gunn and Cordelia/Kira had all attended the performance that night and learned the truth; and later, Angel had shut down the temporal shift and kicked Kurskov's ass for what he'd done.

But not before Xander and his half-demon companion had almost had sex together after getting possessed by the spirits of two long-trapped lovers, in that backstage dressing room.

It still made Xander uncomfortable thinking about what had happened that night, or even recalling those smooth, tanned inner thighs – those gravity-defying, magnificent breasts – those smoky hazel eyes – and those full, pouting and very kissable lips. Because while Kira had never made any secret of the fact that she wanted to make him her personal cuddle monkey, it had been the first time in years that Cordelia had hinted she wouldn't be opposed to resuming their romantic relationship as well. And Xander honestly wasn't sure what to do with that right now.

Plus, God help him but after the past six weeks Harris was starting to find it hard to distinguish between the human and the demon. Both women had similar attitudes and personality quirks, and were united in attempting to make him get over his issues. In particular, the Seer had taken it upon herself to make Harris learn how to orb at will, by playing a tag type game. In other words by shimmering away after trying to give the young man an atomic wedgie, which had in fact been Cordelia's idea, and forcing Xander to orb after her in order to catch the Seer.

Well, it wasn't exactly a traditional whitelighter education under one of the Elders, but it was nonetheless an effective one.

"Hey, Xander? I, I think we need to talk," Buffy's hesitant voice distracted Harris from his thoughts.

"Sure, Buff. About what?" Xander slowed down and stopped as he turned to face his Slayer friend.

"I have, um, something to tell you." Miss Summers had finally decided to come clean with Harris about her relationship with Spike. Giles' leaving had indeed forced her to take responsibility for all her actions, just as the Watcher had intended, and so Buffy had chosen to tell the truth to her friend tonight.

"Okay. Is it about Dawn? I thought you two were finally starting to get along now that Social Services has taken you off that probation thing," Xander frowned.

"No, that's not it..." Buffy trailed off.

"Well, is it about Tara? I know you've been a bit – edgy around her lately, even though I don't know why," Xander frowned. He had no idea it was because Buffy had confessed to Miss Maclay about sleeping with Spike, and about how his chip didn't work on her anymore; and the witch had subsequently learned that there wasn't anything 'wrong' with Buffy, she only had the mystical equivalent of a deep tropical sunburn at a molecular level.

"It's not her, either. At least not directly," Buffy replied, not wanting to think about the reaction she'd had after Tara had completed her research. The hysterical crying fit the Slayer had thrown after realizing her problems were psychological rather than physical in nature hadn't been pretty to witness.

"It can't be Anya, can it? She's not giving you grief like, like wanting to charge rent for training at the Magic Box?" Xander suddenly had a worried look on his face.

"NO!" Buffy looked angry for a moment. ( _Can't you just shut up for a second and let me say what I have to?_ ) "It, it has to do with Spike." Buffy honestly had no idea how she was going to do this, tell her vampire-hating friend how she had willingly had sex with Spike for months before breaking up with him last week – after that whole Riley Finn and the Doctor fiasco.

"What about – damn," Xander heard that now-familiar jingle in his ears. "Sorry, Buff, guess we'll have to do this when I get back from LA!" He subsequently orbed out, the cloud of blue-white lights heading up and away before vanishing completely.

"Sure," Buffy said forlornly. "Looking forward to it."

Unfortunately, she had no idea just how long it would be before she ever spoke to Xander Harris again.

***

**Viaduct Underneath the Sixth Street Bridge, Los Angeles**

**A short while earlier**

Daniel Holtz, refugee from the past, had eventually gotten rid of the Grapplar demons after that fiasco at Caritas, instead building up an army of revenge-filled human soldiers. Sahjhan hadn't been pleased about that, but since the demon was noncorporeal thanks to an ancient curse, there hadn't exactly been much he could do about it.

Holtz had probed his enemies' defenses carefully ever since that night he had first attacked the Hyperion. The Seer had been a big thorn in his side, as she had been able to foresee what he had been planning at the same moment Holtz had ever come up with a plan of action. But that cloaking magic provided by a grumbling Sahjhan had helped and as Kira herself had once admitted, she wasn't omniscient; so Holtz had finally had himself a real good day, attacking Angel Investigations again and managing to kidnap the infant Connor.

"Come any closer and I'll break his neck!" Holtz snarled at Angel, holding the baby hostage as the ensouled vampire tossed one of Daniel's lieutenants aside. The former Angelus wasn't especially gentle with the woman named Justine either, as she ended up unconscious on the ground. Angel had seen how Miss Cooper had sliced open Wesley's throat at the hotel during the attack, and the Champion wasn't even sure whether the boss of the agency (who had been told weeks ago by Kira that the prophecy of Angel killing his own son was a false one) was dead or alive right now.

All around them Wolfram & Hart commandos suddenly arrived, jumping out of their vehicles and cocking their machine guns. Holtz looked at them and quickly zeroed in on the enemy commander in charge, as he had met her once before. "Who are they?" he gestured with his chin to the commandos.

"People who work for me," the woman named Lilah Morgan replied. "We need to talk, Captain Holtz."

At that moment, the air shivered and Sahjhan appeared out of nowhere. He said to Ms. Morgan, "I thought we had an arrangement. Your part in all this was to kill the kid that Angel here spawned, so why am I not seeing him dead?"

Lilah smirked, "Have you met me? I'm a lawyer. We now have a new arrangement, Sahjhan. Namely, I've decided I'm going to keep the baby."

"You can't do that!" Sahjhan protested vehemently.

Lilah said to her commandos, "Ignore the loudmouth with the bad skin. He's impotent in this dimension."

Holtz had had enough of the chatter. "We're leaving."

Lilah shook her head, "No one's going anywhere."

Angel looked over at Holtz and Connor, and guessing what the vamp was thinking the demon hunter said bluntly, "He'll be dead before I hit the ground."

"I know," Angel said simply. Looking for any opportunity to rescue his son, but finding none.

"So. I'm going to leave now, understand? With me, the child gets to live. Anyone tries to take him, he dies," this British throwback twisted by hate promised everyone.

After a long beat Angel said simply, "Take him."

That was the last straw for Sahjhan, though. "No!" Raising his hands the demon chanted, "Lekko najine forkahdio!"

There was a big explosion with bright sparks, as a hole in reality suddenly opened up not far away. Past the burning edges of the portal, there could be seen the turbulent, blood-red sky of a hostile demon dimension.

Sahjhan said, "What you're looking into is Quor-toth, the darkest of all the dark worlds. So – I can widen the entrance and you can all be swallowed up by a hell world that you cannot even begin to imagine..." He looked squarely at Lilah as he finished up, "...or you can keep your word to me and kill that child. Now!"

When no one moved the demon spread his arms, "You can't say I didn't warn you." Instantly, the opening in the air grew bigger.

At that moment Xander orbed into the scene, distracting everyone. Harris looked around and instantly started glaring at Holtz, "You again?"

With nothing left to lose – he knew that Xander might be able to orb Connor directly out of his grasp before he could do anything about it – Holtz instantly charged towards the portal. He managed to jump into the roiling red air of the interface and disappear from view; but Angel, who had been right behind him, wasn't so lucky. He got thrown back by a lightning bolt lashing out from the portal, and hitting him full in the chest. Connor's father flew backward, landing with a hard thud on the ground.

"Well, I didn't count on that," Sahjhan mused to himself. "Kinda takes care of my problem though, doesn't it?"

At that moment, Xander made a decision. He had no idea what lay beyond the veils, but dissolving into those glowing blue-white orb lights, the whitelighter nonetheless also vanished into the hell dimension, just before Sahjhan said, "Forkahdio najine lekko!" and the entryway shrank and disappeared.

"All right then," Sahjhan added, unconcerned about what Xander had just done and looking down at Angel; who was still on the ground staring at where the portal used to be. "That's that, I guess. Have a nice summer."

With that, Sahjhan simply disappeared into thin air.

"Connor," Angel said pathetically, hoping with all his might that Xander would rescue his son in that hell world before Holtz killed him out of spite or something. He also tried to come up with some sort of plan on how to retrieve them from Quor-toth, but he currently had no idea what to do next.

"Let's get out of here," Lilah said to her commandos, having the horrible feeling that all this was going to turn into a nightmare of paperwork back at the office. "I'd say our job here is done."

"What about him?" her field commander asked, pointing at Angel.

"Let him sit there and suffer," Lilah decided caustically, before she and the commandos exited stage left.

TBC...


	7. The Return

See Part One for Disclaimer and details. Holy cow, but the last chapter got me quite a few reviews and plenty of feedback! I honestly wasn't expecting it, to tell you the truth. Anyway, thanks heaps to everyone who sent in their comments, I really appreciate it. I can only hope that this chapter and the ones to come live up to that high standard. Okay, on with the fanfic...

***

**Part Seven: The Return**

**Pyramid-shaped tomb, Blessed Memories Cemetery, Sunnydale**

**February 25****th****, 2002**

"Our alliance is finished. You have failed to live up to your part of the bargain," The Guardian told the Seer coldly.

Kira replied with a haughty look, "Oh, please. I mean these things do take time, you know-"

"Time? It has been two months ever since we came to our little arrangement. And it has been FIVE months ever since the forces protecting the Slayer line were altered and became vulnerable to attack," the white-haired old woman spat out. "It is a miracle that the First Evil has not yet gone on the warpath!"

"Will you relax? Geez, take a chill pill or something," Cordelia took over as she started to look annoyed. She carefully smoothed an imaginary wrinkle on her clothes, which these days did not consist solely of purple harem girl outfits any longer. "And I swear, I don't know how I let you two talk me into keeping all this a secret. We should just tell Xander everything already-"

"And set up an inferiority complex that will accomplish nothing but rob our champion of the ability to do what must be done? No," the Guardian said firmly. "That way lies only disaster."

"She's right, you know," the Seer said to her roommate. "And the same applies for the rest of all your so-called acquaintances. Like what exactly will telling Willow Rosenberg accomplish, for example? All that'll happen is that she'll start blaming herself for everything, even more than what she's already doing now."

Suddenly, the Guardian stiffened and her eyes went wide with horror. "NO!"

The Seer and Cordelia looked confused for a second, before Kira had a psychic vision of her own regarding what Xander Harris had just done far away in Los Angeles, which was willingly sending himself to Quor-toth in order to save a baby from the warped clutches of Daniel Holtz.

Both the demon and the human screamed out Xander's name with equal intensity, the distorted sound echoing and bouncing madly off the walls of the Egyptian tomb.

***

**Drew Medical Center, Los Angeles**

**A short while later**

"How's Wesley?" Angel asked, eyeing both Fred and Charles carefully. He'd rejoined his friends and co-workers here just a few moments ago, painfully making his way from where he'd chased Holtz after the attack on the Hyperion. The vampire couldn't help thinking that the two humans looked like they'd been on the front lines for too long during a war, as both of them were sporting various bandages everywhere.

"The good news is that the doctors said he'll live," Fred offered hesitantly in response to the question.

"Yeah. But Wes is in a coma, and they don't think he'll be wakin' up anytime soon. Even if he does, we're still talking major brain damage from the blood loss and lack of oxygen," Gunn said acerbically. "We need Harris here, pronto."

Angel steeled himself and said quietly, "That's – gonna be a problem."

"What?" Fred asked in confusion. Then Miss Burkle began staring at Angel in horror, as the vampire told both herself and Gunn what had happened. "No. No, it can't be. The baby's not gone, not like that!"

"Honey, it's gonna be okay," Charles tried to comfort his new girlfriend. Ever since the night of the ballet, they had entered into 'more than friends' territory despite the problems associated with workplace romances.

"No, please. Anything but a portal!" She saw Gunn's look and added, "There-there's pulling and there's noise, and there's nothing to hold on to when you – nothing at all..."

"Baby..." Gunn tried to calm her down.

Fred still looked freaked though as she finished up, "He must have been so scared!"

Gunn wrapped her in his arms as he said, "Shh. I know." After she'd calmed down a bit, he looked back at Angel. "So Harris is in this hell place with Connor and Holtz? And – since he ain't back yet, odds are the dude's trapped there with 'em?"

"Yeah," the one-time Irishman said simply, his face emotionless and cold.

"How the hell did this happen, man?" Gunn asked hopelessly.

As if in reply, the Seer shimmered into existence. "Angel! We need to talk-"

At that moment, the ensouled vampire almost totally lost it. Even after all these weeks, he still hadn't warmed up to Kira; not only because she was a soulless demon, but the new living arrangement with Cordelia had killed off any hopes he'd had for establishing some sort of romantic relationship with Miss Chase. Angel certainly hadn't been happy with the Seer rekindling Cordy's interest in her ex, however much denial the former wannabe actress indulged in about that.

So he grabbed Kira by the neck and shoved her up against the wall. "I want some answers out of you. Why the hell didn't you see this coming?! Holtz took my son-"

"And Xander went after them. I know," the Seer replied.

"Hey!" Cordelia took over, lifting her leg up and kicking Angel in the groin. The unexpected pain was enough to make the male vamp wheeze as her knee connected directly with the family jewels, and the bloodsucker quickly let her go as he moved away. "Sorry, Angel, but you don't get to do that to her – because you're also doing it to ME, remember?"

Instantly ashamed, Angel straightened up and apologized, "I'm sorry, Cordy. I, I just..."

"No need to apologize," the human part of the buxom brunette instantly brushed away Angel's words. "Like I said, I'm the one who should say sorry to you! I mean odds are she didn't see this coming because Kira and I – well, we've been arguing a helluva lot lately."

"'Bout what?" Charles asked.

"Private girl stuff," Miss Chase told him rather huffily, and Gunn took the hint not to inquire anymore about it. Besides, even if he had asked, it was unlikely either Cordelia or Kira would have admitted that the fights had mostly been about which of the two roommates Xander would eventually end up sleeping with first.

At that moment, Lorne came to join the Fang Gang. He was in disguise with a hat and sunglasses, even if his green skin was still clearly visible. Luckily though this was Los Angeles, and so the former Host of Caritas wasn't even remotely the weirdest-looking guy running around on the streets. "Hey. I-I talked to a couple of different sources like you asked, Angel-cake, and the news isn't good. This, this Quor-toth demon dimension – everyone I spoke to is afraid of it."

"Afraid? Why?" Fred demanded.

"That's the thing, sweetie, this place is such bad news that my sources – and these are not easily rattled people, by the way – they really didn't want to get into all the horrors you'll find there. And, and that's not all."

"What else did ya find out?" Gunn asked.

"Well, the portal Angel said he saw opened? It wasn't a portal – because there are no portals to Quor-toth. The only way in is to rip open a hole right through the fabric of reality. I mean, this isn't a matter of finding an inter-dimensional hotspot or conjuring up an opening with a simple incantation! To punch through to Quor-toth would require dark, dark magicks, the kind of power it takes centuries to build."

Everyone turned to stare at Kira but the Seer shook her head, "I don't have that kind of power, and even if I did, I have no idea how to do something like that. And before any of you mention it, the odds of me finding the right place simply by shimmering my way there are astronomical!"

"Oh, and then there's that thing where you'd be trapped there like the others, even if you did somehow manage to get lucky that way," Fred quickly realized.

"Can't you get any sort of information on where exactly Harris and the kid are on the Psychic News Network, or whatever the hell it is? 'Cause just about anything would be a big help right now," Gunn asked the Seer.

"No. I can't sense Connor at all and I've told you before, I can't see Xander's future very well; more often than not, it's a complete blank to me," she replied. ( _And why else do you think I'm so interested in the guy? Not only is he supposed to be a Viking in the sack, but Xander's the only man in the entire world whose past and future aren't a complete open book to me. And a girl does appreciate having a bit of mystery in her life, after all._ )

( _I've told you before, damn it. Stop thinking of Xander that way!_ ) the annoyed and somewhat jealous voice of Cordelia interrupted the Seer's thoughts. ( _Now make yourself useful and start figuring out a way we can rescue him and Connor!_ )

( _I'm trying, but so far I've got bupkus! YOU think of something!_ ) Kira shot back in annoyance.

"I'm sorry, people, but as far as I know we just don't have the resources to conjure a way into this place," Lorne said hopelessly.

"We don't need to," Angel suddenly realized. "We're gonna find the son of a bitch who opened up that hole in the first place, and get HIM to undo this. His name is Sahjhan, he's some kind of inter-dimensional demon. I'll find him and make him cooperate."

"How?" everyone else asked at the same time.

Angel didn't reply, he just turned around and ran out of the hospital.

***

**Holtz's headquarters, Los Angeles**

**February 26****th****, 2002**

Not long after the midnight hour, Sahjhan strode into the home he had provided for Daniel Holtz and his people, finally corporeal once more.

It was all Angel's doing: he had decided to throw out the rulebook and kidnapped the head of the Wolfram & Hart's Special Projects division, Linwood Murrow. Under threat of torture, Linwood had instructed Lilah to assist Angel in his task of restoring Sahjhan's physical form; and so, after a major ritual within the Hyperion involving painting a pentagram on the floor and shedding human blood upon it, the timeshifter demon had been returned to what he'd originally been.

"You! What are you doing here?" Justine demanded upon seeing Sahjhan.

"Hi, Justine. Been a while, hasn't it? Oh yeah, last time we talked, you tried to cut off my head." The demon smiled and backhanded Miss Cooper, who went flying away. "Can't tell you how much I missed doing that." He looked over the pitiful remnants of Holtz's army, who were finally realizing just how far in over their heads they'd gotten. "I also missed gravity, friction, and smashing things to pieces. Hmm, what say we start with your skulls?"

"Or, we could start with yours," Angel said as he appeared out of the shadows and all the humans wisely ran for it.

"Angel!" Sahjhan said in delight. "I'm guessing I have you to thank for the whole mortal coil thing?"

"Yeah. Tell you what: you take me to that Quor-toth place, help me find my son, we'll just call it even," the vampire came closer to the demon, a lethal expression on his face. Angel had recently beaten up one of Holtz's men to reveal the whereabouts of the enemy HQ, and then made his way here quickly as possible.

Not exactly the actions of a noble Champion for the Powers, but there was a good reason why Angelus was known as the Scourge of Europe and now with his son's life on the line, Angel was DONE playing games with these people.

"Hmm, not even interested in that other guy who went in after Holtz and the kid, huh? Why am I not surprised?" Sahjhan smirked at the vamp. "But anyway, the answer's no."

"Too bad. You're taking me there anyway," Angel growled at him, slipping into game face.

"That's what you think. Truth is, though, I couldn't even if I wanted to," Sahjhan never seemed to lose his good humour.

"You're a liar!" Angel's tough exterior started to crack.

"No, no, I'm really not. That's the thing about Quor-toth. All three of them, including and especially the bambino, are now gone for good," Sahjhan said merrily.

At that moment, Kira shimmered in but she was not alone. Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg and Tara Maclay were with her. "Goddess, b-but that felt weird!" Tara muttered.

"Who the hell are you people?" Sahjhan demanded, staring at the Sunnydale crowd.

"What are you guys doing here?" Angel also demanded at the same time.

"Cordy said this guy sent Xander to Hell or something," Buffy looked pissed at Sahjhan. "We're here to help get him back."

"Yeah. So undo what you did, you – you mean, lousy demon!" Willow tried but failed to come up with a good insult on the fly like Buffy always did.

"Like I was just sayin' to Angel here, Red, I can't. See, basically, I could open a hole to Quor-toth exactly one time. That's why I actually chose it in the first place! Anyone tries to do that again, the whole damn universe could go kaplooey. Bad for me, bad for you, bad for America," Sahjhan told them all.

"Then we'll find some other way-" Buffy started to say.

"There IS no other way," Sahjhan interrupted. "There are no portals to Quor-toth. Didn't you know even that much, Goldilocks?"

"Don't call me that!" Buffy shouted, annoyed at hearing Spike's old nickname again.

"Oh, that reminds me. Why am I not killing you all already?" Sahjhan began to advance forward.

"Because I'm the Slayer," Miss Summers straightened up, finally accepting who she was again after all these months. "And I'm SO gonna kick your ass into a brand new shape for what you've done!"

"Hold it," Cordelia spoke up. "Before all the usual kicking and punching starts, one last offer. Help us get Xander and Connor back, or else..."

"Or else what?" Sahjhan smiled patronizingly.

"Or else I tell you exactly when you're going to die," Kira took over their body. "Genuine seer standing here, remember?" After Sahjhan shook his head, the brunette woman said, "Fine, then here it is. I can't foresee the exact details, but I do know that on April 19th 2004? Your old buddy, Cyvus Vail, he's gonna be laughing his head off after seeing your dead body laying on his floor. So enjoy the last two years of life which you've got left, scumbag."

Unfortunately, that only pissed off the timeshifter demon as Sahjhan started attacking everyone with a loud roar. Angel got tossed against the wall, Kira shimmering out of the way just in time. Buffy got hit in the face and reeled back from the incredible strength of the blow, but then Angel returned into the thick of things and both demon and vampire started slugging away at one another.

"We've got to do something!" Willow said to Tara, watching the fight worriedly.

Miss Maclay started to cast a binding spell, but Sahjhan instantly knew what she was up to. Tossing Angel and Buffy aside like a pair of rag dolls, he came up to the witches and Tara stopped chanting as the demon cocked his fist menacingly. A moment later Sahjhan said, "Didn't have to be this way, you know. If Holtz had just killed that damn kid while it was still inside its mother, we could have avoided all this! Oh well, I guess it's like they say: 'everything happens for a reason'."

Sahjhan reached forward to smash Tara's head apart but Willow, who couldn't just stand there and do nothing despite her vow to give up magic, suddenly shouted, "VINCIRE!"

"No. No! NOOO!" Sahjhan started to scream as he was sucked into a swirl of green light and deposited into a nearby Resikian Urn. A repository which Holtz had acquired as a backup plan, in case he ever needed to rid himself of his demon sponsor.

Once it was done and the evil demon safely imprisoned, all five of the white hats just stood around and stared at each other for a while, as the true scope of their loss suddenly hit home like never before.

***

**Waverley Park, Sunnydale**

**Early April, 2002**

As William the Bloody walked home towards his crypt that night, he briefly wondered what had happened to the missing Anya Jenkins. She had disappeared a while back, thanks to a demon calling itself Stewart Burns, and no one knew where the capitalistic ex-demon was right now. But Spike didn't wonder about that for too long, as he had other things to think about.

Namely, how all the Scooby women had gotten rather annoyed with him lately.

Dawn was currently somewhat pissed at him for being so dismissive of Harris ending up in Quor-toth, even though personally Spike thought it couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke – and as an added bonus, the son of old Peaches was there as well.

Willow was a little mad at him after learning what the British vampire had said and done to Buffy ever since last year, that she had come back 'wrong' and that she belonged in the darkness with him and what-not.

Tara was a bit angry with him as well, as she had witnessed Spike being unable to take 'no' for an answer on the question of Buffy sleeping with him again after he'd come around to the house once too often.

( _Sodding bloody women, _) Spike thought to himself morosely. ( _Can't live with 'em, and can't kill them, either. Cor blimey, no wonder Dru gave up on me completely way back when. And I used to be the Big Bad and proud of it, so why am I feeling like this? What have the bleeding bints done to me lately?_ )

He had no answer for that question. Granted that Spike had tried to understand where all the girls had been coming from, he really had. But unfortunately, because of the lack of a soul, he simply couldn't grasp on a personal level their human values of right and wrong.

Take, for example, the Suvolte demon eggs he had been holding for a friend when Riley Finn and his stupid chit wife had shown up back in February. In Spike's mind, since Buffy constantly needed money after the Watcher had walked out and left her to fend for herself, then the least he could do was procure some for the woman he loved. Obviously he couldn't get a nine-to-five job in the human world, so he had to pursue – other avenues – in order to come up with the dosh for the Summers family.

It simply couldn't penetrate William's mind that Buffy, Dawn and their friends didn't want that sort of blood money as a matter of principle, no more than a dog or a cat could regret urinating on the carpet and forcing its owner to clean up the mess afterwards.

( _It's got to be all that damned wanker's fault, somehow,_ ) Spike grumbled to himself, his thoughts shifting to Xander. ( _Ever since he pissed off, it's all gone downhill for me. Should have killed him years ago, before I got neutered by that chip! Would have done it a few months ago too, if I'd been able to get my hands on some of that poison – what was it called again? Blacklighter? Darklighter? Something like that, anyway. And what the hell Buffy ever thought she saw in him, I'll never bloody understand..._ )

The concept of his beloved being romantically interested in another man almost got Spike's blood boiling, before he noticed a very familiar female form patrolling through the park. "Oi, Buffy! Wait up!" the undead Englishman called out, uncaring of any other vampires that might be around. "We need to talk, luv."

The blonde turned around, and instantly got a huge smile on her face. "Spike! It's you, with your incredible washboard abs!"

William the Bloody immediately got suspicious, realizing that something was wrong with this picture. The Slayer simply didn't talk like this. "Buffy?"

"Yes, Spike? Oh, do you want for us to go have sex somewhere? Your crypt isn't far away, and even though you're evil, you're just too handsome and sexy for me to resist!"

Obviously then, despite appearances this wasn't Buffy. Spike finally made the connection, as he utilized his sense of smell on the female before him. "Oh bloody hell, it's you! The Buffy-bot!"

"I'm Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the human-looking machine answered perkily, having being salvaged and repaired by Warren recently. Unfortunately, he had not been able to root out all of the obsolete programming yet, and so the Buffy-bot had gone out on patrol tonight without Mears knowing about it. "So, how about it? I've missed you," the robot said in a rather sultry and sexy way, offering herself to him with no strings attached.

"Gotta admit, luv, I AM rather tempted by the offer," Spike grinned, his mood considerably improved already. "But I'm afraid not. The real Buffy's who I want nowadays."

"But deep down she doesn't want you, because you don't have a soul. You're not Angel," the Buffy-bot replied, unheeding of the dark look Spike quickly sent her. "And wow, you should see him naked!"

"Well, I did that one time – no!" William utterly refused to talk to the Buffy-bot about THAT particular occurrence. "What are you doin' here, anyway? Last time I saw you, you were just a pile of spare bits 'n pieces after those bloody Hellions were done with you."

"Buffy? Buffy!" a male voice shouted out, as Spike turned around and did a double-take at who he saw approaching. The Xander-bot saw the vampire and his fellow machine talking and quickly joined them. "Hey, Buffster, what's the what? How come you left the house?"

"Oh bloody hell," Spike groaned to himself. "Now there's TWO of them?"

The Xander-bot merely glanced at the soulless undead. "Spike. You're the impotent pet vampire of the Scooby Gang."

Machine or not, the robot instantly got on William the Bloody's nerves just as much as the real Xander would have done. "Lemme guess, mate. Warren went 'n created you too?"

"I'm Xander Harris," the Xander-bot replied, following its programming. "I like to have sex with Anya, and I hate all vampires."

"Bleedin' heck. That ponce really outdid himself this time," Spike shook his head, not knowing that Warren was walking up behind him. "Ought to kill that guy on general principles..."

"Buffy, Xander! Override code one-A," Warren called out. He had plans coming up that he couldn't afford for the Scoobies to learn about from Spike, plans that had been in the making ever since Andrew had been killed months ago. As the vampire turned around to face the human, Mears smiled in a chilly way. "Terminate Spike with extreme prejudice."

Spike's eyes went wide as the two machines instantly went into combat mode, and teamed up to dust him. "Hey, what's going on? What are ya doing this for?" Spike yelled to Warren, as he dodged the attacks of the robots. He and the human knew each other well; in fact, Mears had been the one Spike had initially gone to see for answers when he had discovered that his chip didn't work on Buffy anymore.

"Sorry, Spike. But like you said, despite our past associations I 'ought to kill this guy on general principles'," Warren smirked briefly.

Spike was no fool, and he knew that this was a battle he couldn't win. He couldn't personally harm Warren and against one of the 'bots he may have stood a chance, but not two of them. Physically, the vampire was no match for both opponents at the same time, and the machines couldn't be swayed by any sort of rational argument or emotional attack; they had been given a job to do, and just like on TV and the movies, they mindlessly wouldn't stop until Spike was dead. Well, deader than he already was.

So William the Bloody ran for it, eventually grabbing a motorbike and heading out of town. Recalling what the Buffy-bot had said about the soul factor, Spike also decided on a plan of action that he hoped – he PRAYED – would eventually be enough to make the real Buffy love him.

***

**Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles**

**The next day**

"Hey, Gunn, Fred? Why don't you two check out the pool I found downstairs the other day, I have to talk to Angel about something," Cordelia said to her friends, before turning to face the brooding vampire.

"We have a pool in this place?" Miss Burkle looked at her boyfriend in surprise.

"First I've heard of it," Charles looked astonished as well.

"Yeah, I found it in the basement underneath the ballroom in the south wing. Water needed some serious filtration and re-chlorination, but now it's just perfect the way it is," Cordy said, still staring at Angel.

"Sounds good to me," Gunn stared at Fred appreciatively.

"My bathing suit is upstairs," the young woman said in reply, making eyes at Gunn. "Be right back?"

"Huh, thinking that I may as well come with. Since I'm gonna be skinny-dipping and all," Gunn grinned at his girl.

"Charles!!" Winfred scolded him, before running away and the black man playfully chased after her.

"Finally! I thought they'd never leave," Miss Chase declared. "All right, mister, let's hear it. Angel, what's up with you? Lately, you've been acting like something crawled up your ass and died there!"

As Angel stepped towards her, neither he nor the seer noticed small flickers of lightning briefly appearing in mid-air directly above the pentagram which the vampire had drawn to help make Sahjhan corporeal. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, I think you do," Miss Chase retorted, starting to grow angry. "Now spill, or I'll keep bugging you about it 'til it drives you nuts! What is your problem?"

"It's nothing."

"Is it about Connor? Angel, I'm sorry but it's been over a month-" Cordelia started to say.

"I don't want to talk about him," Angel cut her off. "And I don't want to talk about Wesley either, before you bring up the subject. He was still vegetating in the hospital when I visited him the other day. So tell me, when's the last time YOU paid him a visit?"

"It must have been – geez it, last time was almost a month ago," Cordelia realized in sudden shame.

"Exactly," Angel proclaimed as, in the background, more lightning briefly appeared and still went unnoticed by the pair.

"Well, I've been busy," Cordelia tried to defend herself. She didn't want to mention that a lot of her time had been spent in Sunnydale, helping the Guardian of the Slayer line try to fix the mess Willow and the others had created last year.

"Doing what? Going on another shopping spree like you've been doing lately?" Angel asked rather sarcastically.

"What is THAT supposed to mean?" the brunette said furiously.

"That demon has changed you, Cordelia," Angel told her reproachfully. "I mean, ever since the Seer came into the picture, you've changed a lot! And don't try to deny it. From the moment she started using her powers to make herself rich, you've been acting more and more like the person I knew back in high school."

"HEY!" Cordelia now looked absolutely livid, very much like the 'Queen C' of old. "Angel, that was totally uncalled for! Besides, do you honestly think I ever LIKED living poor that way? Hello, I was the richest girl in Sunnydale! If Kira can use her powers to find lost money and foresee which companies are gonna do well in the stock market, then why shouldn't I help her invest it and reap the rewards of our joint efforts?"

"Cordelia-"

"Besides, I've been helping fund this detective agency lately, bucko! I mean God, when was the last time you actually worked on a case? And I don't count helping that guy Phil from Inglewood find his lost dog!" Cordy ranted.

"Cordelia-"

"It's not like you've been pulling your own weight lately – we've got bills to pay, and all you ever do is sit in your office and brood! And the other day when I suggested we do some sword training together, like we used to do last year? You said you were too busy. Sure, too busy sitting on your ass and feeling sorry for yourself is more like it!"

"CORDELIA!" Angel shouted, startling the seer. "That's enough!"

Again, there were some static discharges in the air, but stronger this time. Again, neither noticed as Kira surfaced and took over their timeshare of a body. "Oh, I don't think so, Soul Boy," she smirked in that way that she knew Angel truly detested. "Because we're just getting started here."

"I have nothing to say to you," Angel scowled at Kira, he knew she was in the driver's seat now.

"Yeah, well, that's because you're jealous," the Seer told him snippily.

"Jealous? Jealous of who?" the Champion demanded.

"Me, of course," Kira started gliding around the lobby. "After all, we're more alike than you'd care to admit. We're both demons with a soul here, right? It's just that I don't have 140-plus years of murder and mayhem to make up for like you do. And then there's the fact that I can do just about everything you can, plus a lot of things you can't."

"Really," Angel said rather sardonically.

"Yeah. Like go out into the sunlight, for example. Enjoy real food. Be able to make love without worrying about – you know what," the Seer suddenly smiled nastily at the vampire. "It must really bruise your ego to know that I honestly don't get all wet for you downstairs, like a certain Slayer did back in the day. Am I wrong about that or what?"

"Don't you ever talk to me about Buffy like that again," Angel took a step forward, fists clenched and his voice ice-cold.

"Okay, you two, cool it!" Cordelia took over and started on damage control. "I swear, WHEN are you guys ever gonna grow up? How can I be the adult around here, when the demon and the vampire are older than me by freaking centuries?"

Angel would have replied, but this time the electrical discharges in the air were too loud and intense to ignore. Both Angel and his seer stepped back as the lightning bolts started crackling, and the air became visibly disturbed.

All of a sudden an ugly, horned, demonic beast materialized and dropped out of the air, landing on the pentagram below. It roared at them both, but before it could do anything more a male teenager, dressed in odd-looking leather clothing, dropped down from the air beside it and beheaded the creature in one smooth motion.

The decapitated demon collapsed onto the floor as the male teen looked around. "Hey," he said as he spied Angel, wielding his weapon carefully. "You're my dad, right?"

"Connor?" Angel whispered, almost completely pole-axed. His vampiric sense of smell told him that this was definitely his son, but the kid had to be 17 years old at the very least. And his boy had been barely three months of age when Holtz had taken him through the – oh, no.

( _Like father, like son._ ) Angel was reminded of his own sojourn into a hell world thanks to Buffy Summers and Acathla, where he had spent a hundred years there being tortured; and yet, less than six months had passed on Earth.

All things considered, it seemed that his offspring had been luckier than he'd been, both in terms of time and sanity.

"Dad!" Connor tossed aside his weapon and went to embrace his father. "I knew it was you! It's just like Uncle Xander always said, 'you'll know him when you see him. Nobody else has that incredibly distinctive forehead'!"

"Uncle Xander?" Cordelia and Kira somehow said at the same time, a whole world of hope and excitement in their voice even as Angel stared at his son. Cordelia stared at him too, trying to see the baby whose diapers she'd changed in the young man before her.

The boy would have replied to that but Angel started to babble, "Connor, are you okay? You, you grew up in a hell dimension! I mean – what was it like there in Quor-toth? Connor – I'm so sorry. I tried to get you back, I really did. I tried to come after you, I would have done anything to rescue you, you gotta believe me! It's just – I, I couldn't find a way in..."

"I know, Dad," Connor stepped back, studying the vampire carefully. "It's okay. Uncle Xander and I finally found a way out instead."

"Is he okay?" Cordelia demanded. "Where is Xander?"

Connor turned to look at the brunette again. "Are you Aunt Cordelia? 'Cause you look just like Uncle Xander described – one of the most beautiful things ever to exist."

Miss Chase preened at the unexpected praise, but then her roommate took over. "Hello, Connor. I'm Kira. Did Xander tell you about me?"

"Yes," the male teen frowned, studying her face intensely. "You're the Seer, right? You're the one who comes from the same place that whitelighters do."

"I should have – I should've tried harder," Angel interrupted the conversation, the self-blame and inner recriminations still going on strong within his mind. "I, I shouldn't have quit trying to find you, I know that. But you're back now, Connor. And, and, and that's what's important, right? You-you came back to me. I wanna know everything, son. Everything about you, you know, what your life's been like? You, you must have a million questions..."

"Yeah. But right now, all I want to know is – where the hell is Uncle Xander?" Connor turned around and stared at the inter-dimensional rift which started to crackle and hiss, the boy had begun to worry about his 'uncle'.

"Hey, what's going on here?" Gunn came down the stairs wearing a pair of white swimming trunks, accompanied by a bikini-clad Fred.

"Who are you?" Miss Burkle asked, staring at the stranger in chamois.

"It's Connor – he's come back from Quor-toth," Angel said with a combination of ecstasy and disbelief, forcing himself not to have a moment of perfect happiness by deliberately thinking unpleasant thoughts. Like visualizing vampires such as Spike and the Master parade around in a leather thong, for example.

"CONNOR?" both humans said in stunned shock, staring at the newcomer and unable to believe.

"Tell me we don't live in a soap opera," Cordelia said in her own special way.

"Yes – just as long as there's no one in sight wearing hooker-wear?" Connor said uncertainly, and then he smiled when Cordelia swiveled to stare at him in shock. "Uncle Xander used to tease you about that sort of thing all the time, right?"

"Oh my God, the big dork really did raise you in that hell world," Miss Chase said in amazement, as Gunn and Fred came to join the others. "This is unbelievable!"

Suddenly thunder and lightning cracked above the pentagram, driving everyone backwards with the barrage of light and sound. But when it was over, something everyone had been waiting for finally took place.

That intense display of glittering blue-white orb lights heralding the arrival of the one and only whitelighter named Xander Harris.

When the orb lights morphed into human form, the Fang Gang was surprised to see Xander wearing a dark robe with a hood of some sort hanging down the back. But what freaked Cordelia out was the look in those chocolate-brown eyes of his, which she had stared into for many months during high school.

If the late Andrew Wells had been there, he would have described it as a lifetime of weariness, the same thing Darth Vader had seen when fighting Obi-wan Kenobi aboard the Death Star in the first Star Wars movie. The face and the physical form were unchanged, even if they were 38 years old now; but the look in Xander's eyes couldn't be hidden or disguised from Cordelia. Or Kira either, for that matter, who knew whitelighters in a way that no one else in this world did.

"I'm home," Xander croaked out, looking at the hotel lobby before falling unconscious face-first onto the floor.

"UNCLE XANDER!" Connor yelled, rushing over to the man who'd raised him in a world containing only darkness, demons and despair.

TBC...


	8. Homecoming

See Part One for Disclaimer and details. Okay, I gotta say a big thanks to everyone who's reviewed ever since I started posting this story, it's now officially number one with the highest number of reviews! You guys truly are awesome. But that being said, folks, here's the thing: the end is almost in sight for this one, as there's only one more chapter to go. So I hope you enjoy...

***

**Part Eight: Homecoming**

**Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles**

**Early April, 2002**

"So is this, like, normal for him now?" Lorne asked, who was living at the hotel nowadays like Angel and Fred. He was talking about Xander, who was still out cold and laying on the bed of Room 215.

"No," Connor stared worriedly at his foster father's prone form. The young man wasn't especially comfortable in Lorne's presence, but the worry took precedence over feelings regarding the demons around here. "He's never been out for this long before. I'm starting to get concerned."

"It'll be okay," Angel wanted to comfort his son but not sure how to go about it. "Xander's tough, he's been through a lot and yet he's survived it all..."

"I know. Like the Hyena, the Soldier, and Angelus," Connor said in a distracted way, but his words made Angel cringe on the inside.

( _He told my son about that?_ ) the vampire thought worriedly. ( _What ELSE did Xander tell him about me?_ )

"Uh, what?" Fred asked in confusion after hearing Connor say all that.

"Ancient history from Sunnydale," Cordelia supplied shortly.

"That's where you used to live, right?" Connor asked her curiously. "And where Aunts Buffy, Willow, Tara, Anya and Dawn still live, in that town close to the ocean?"

"Yeah, that's right," Cordelia stared at the teenager curiously.

"I want to go there as soon as Uncle Xander's feeling better," Connor told everyone. "I've been wanting to see that place for as long as I can remember."

"Well, believe me, there's not all that much there worth seeing," Cordy frowned, recalling her childhood upon the Hellmouth with distaste.

"And, uh, this is actually your home, son. You may not remember it, but it really is," Angel tried to dissuade his son gently. The last thing he wanted was to lose the fruit of his loins to some sort of Hellmouth monster when he'd only just now gotten Connor back.

Gunn came into the room, panting from the exertion of running up the stairs. He and Fred had gotten changed back into regular clothes again after Xander had arrived, since this was no longer the time to go fool around in the pool.

"Hey, we got us a problem, folks," he announced. "That cosmic rift thing-y to Planet Hell? It's still open, judging from all that electrical activity that's started up again. So we need to close it up before some hell-beast or another starts stompin' outta there, don'tcha think?"

"Well, Xander could..." Cordelia started to say.

"That's IF he wakes up anytime soon. Lorne, you know some people specializing in dimensional magic, don't you?" Angel asked the anagogic demon.

"You mean like Mistress Meerna? Oh sure, we're good friends, almost as close as a Torto demon and its parasite..." Off everyone's looks, the Pylean demon went to grab his hat, trench coat and sunglasses. "I'll be back soon, toodles everyone."

As Lorne left the room, Connor suddenly developed a confused look on his face. "Uh, isn't there supposed to be someone else here as part of your group? Uncle Wesley, I mean." He saw how everyone was staring at him again. "What? Why are you all looking at me like that?"

"It's not your fault, son," Angel told Connor. "It's just that Wes was hurt the night you were taken to Quor-toth, someone slit his throat – and, uh, he's been in a coma ever since."

"I see," the male teen replied, a hooded look appearing briefly in his eyes.

"Oh! But now that Xander's back, he can cure him like straightaway!" Fred got a very happy look on her face.

"I think he's waking up!" Cordelia exclaimed suddenly, staring at Xander intensely.

"Uncle Xander?" Connor went to his side immediately. "Can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, kiddo," Harris groaned and sat up on the bed, shaking his head. "Ugh, drilling a hole through those cracks in reality really hurt. So, remind me to NEVER do that again, okay?"

"No problem-o," Connor smiled as, in his mind, all was now well again in the universe. "'Cause what's the first rule?"

"Don't die," Xander said smiling back at the teen, and it was suddenly obvious to Angel how although Connor may have his genes, the whitelighter was the boy's true parental guardian now. ( _Harris must have been the one who saw him take his first steps, who heard him say his first word, who talked to him about everything and protected him as he grew up..._ )

As if sensing his thoughts, Xander turned to face the vampire. "Look, I need to talk to Angel – alone. So, could you guys give us some privacy for a few minutes?"

"Not a problem, man," Gunn said, as he escorted Fred out of there. He had to get back to lookout duty anyway.

"Whatever you want, Uncle Xander," Connor added as he too headed for the door.

"I'll be right outside. Because once you're done with Angel, WE have our own little talk scheduled, mister!" Cordelia said frankly as she also departed the room. Her feelings with regard to her high school boyfriend were no longer something she could remain in denial about.

There were a few moments of silence, as the vampire and the whitelighter stared at one another.

"You haven't changed, physically," Angel finally said in order to break the ice.

"That's because I'm not human anymore. It took me a long time to accept that, but nowadays, I'm at peace with who and what I really am," Xander replied, a note of maturity in his voice that Angel knew had never been there before. "Now you and Cordy may not count, but Fred and Gunn also look just like I remember them. And yet Connor and I have been gone for nearly two decades. So tell me, just how long has it been for you guys?"

"Only a few weeks. Just over a month, as a matter of fact," Angel said uncomfortably.

"Is that all? Huh," Xander replied. "I'm gonna have to talk to Connor then, explain the situation. Even if he's probably figured out most of it already."

"Xander – you saved Connor from Holtz, and raised him yourself. There is no way I will ever be able to repay you the sheer magnitude of that debt," Angel replied emotionally, collapsing onto a chair. "When I think of how that man would have twisted and corrupted my son if he'd ever gotten the opportunity – well, let's just say it would have been a fate worse than staking, and thank God it never came to that. So what happened back then, exactly?"

Xander let out seventeen years worth of a sigh. He then spoke of how he had caught up with Daniel not long after arriving in Quor-toth, and taken the baby away from him. He spoke of constantly being on the run with Connor for years, from both the demons and the British demon hunter. Finally Harris said, "Holtz eventually caught up with us about two years ago, even if Connor was too old to be of any real use to him anymore. And I tried to stop it, but the kid knew how that guy was the one who had originally kidnapped him and brought him there to that hell world – so they fought to the death. And I guess it's pretty obvious who won, right?"

If he'd been human, Angel would have offered up a prayer for Holtz's soul, which had endured so much and lost so much over the years. "I just hope he can rest in peace, somehow."

Xander shrugged. "Better than resting in pieces like that, anyway. The whole pacifist thing doesn't really work in Quor-toth, so Connor's one vicious fighter when he has to be."

"What have you told my son about me?" Angel quickly changed the subject as he got up off the chair. He was afraid of hearing the answer, given the bad blood between Xander and himself in the past, but it was a question that he had to ask.

"I told the kid the truth, of course," Harris looked the ensouled vampire right in the eye. "That you and I were both there the night he was born. That I witnessed how his mother sacrificed herself in order for him not to die in that alley. That his father was a vampire like his mom, but that he was a special case because of the soul, and that he'd left the Hellmouth to fight the good fight in this city. That you loved your son, and were willing to die for him like Darla did. What else were you expecting that I'd tell Connor about you?"

It was like the weight of the world had suddenly been lifted from his shoulders as Angel said gratefully, "Thank you. And I really mean that, Xander, I know that you and I were never exactly what you'd call friends-"

"Don't mention it," the whitelighter interrupted. "Because I did it for Connor instead of you; believe me, I know what it's like to feel ashamed of your family, and that's part of why Connor really didn't like it when Holtz called him 'the bastard son of two demons' that day. Gave the kid the edge he needed to win, actually, as that guy was definitely no slouch with a sword even though fifteen years had passed."

Xander paused for a few moments, looking reflective. "But getting back to the whole 'friends' thing – whatever differences we had in the past, Deadboy, they're nothing compared to what I've had to live with for the past seventeen years. When I think about what I was like back then, all those childish insults I used to throw at you simply because you were a vampire – well, let's just say time's given me some perspective on that whole situation, and I CAN tell the difference between the soul and the demon now. Don't get me wrong, I still hate Angelus with a passion; but you aren't him, and I can actually get that nowadays."

( _Wow. He really has grown up,_ ) Angel thought to himself. "Uh, before I forget, if you're feeling up to it – we could definitely use your help with Wesley. See, he's in a coma right now at the Drew Medical Center-"

"Say no more, I'm on it." Xander got up off the bed and dissolved into those glowing blue-white lights which quickly vanished as they travelled up, up and away.

"I am never going to get used to that," Angel muttered to himself, before Cordelia stormed into the room and started berating him mercilessly for letting Xander leave without talking to her first.

***

**Hyperion Hotel Courtyard, Los Angeles**

**Later that night**

Xander stared up at the sky, basking in the moonlight and grateful to see once more the light of the stars. Connor stood beside him, staring up in equal wonder. "They're beautiful," the youth said, examining the constellations carefully.

"That they are. Look, there's the North Star, and over there, that's the Big Dipper," Xander said, pointing. "I'm glad I'm finally able to show them to you, kiddo."

"So am I. Uh, Uncle Xander, now that we're back, what's going to happen now?" Connor suddenly asked with an air of uncertainty.

"I don't know for sure, Connor," was Xander's truthful reply. "Now that Wesley's okay again, I was planning to just pig out on some Twinkies and then go home to Sunnydale-"

"I want to come with you," Connor interrupted.

"Yeah, but you belong here with your father, you little brat," Xander joked gently, before he sobered up. "Seriously. Angel thought you were dead for all those weeks, and now that he's just gotten you back, you wanna take off on him?"

Connor flushed but said, "Well, is there any reason why he can't come with us?"

"That's something you'll have to ask him yourself, Connor. Just try not to hurt your dad's feelings, okay?" Xander asked affectionately. "You've gotta be tactful for once."

"I AM tactful!" the male teen protested.

"Sure you are. That's why all the demons used to call you "The Destroyer" back in Quor-toth," Xander grinned at Angel's son.

As Connor shrugged and left, Cordelia Chase passed him by on her way to talk to Xander. ( _Now, you promise not to interrupt if things get a bit heated?_ ) the young woman mentally asked Kira.

( _I promise,_ ) the Seer replied. ( _Of course, that depends what exactly you mean by 'heated'. If you two start screaming at one another, I'll stay out of it. But if there's the possibility of sex involved, then all bets are off!_ )

"UGHHHH!" Cordelia exclaimed out loud in annoyance, which attracted Xander's attention.

"Hi, Cor," the whitelighter said politely as she joined him. "Hello to you too, Kira."

"Hey," Miss Chase replied. "I wanted to talk to you."

"Okay. About what?" Xander asked.

"Everything, of course," the young woman told him. "You ran out on me earlier today, and trust me doofus, we WILL be having words about that later. But right now, I want to know what your life's been like for the last seventeen years."

"Not all that much to tell," Xander shrugged. "Basically my entire life was Connor, raising him as best I could in that damned demon cesspool. Having to do whatever was necessary, in order to make sure he remained safe – well, relatively safe anyway – all those years we were trapped there."

"And you were the one who managed to find the way out?"

"That was Connor, actually," Xander said with a smile. "The cracks were already there, he was the one who found them. I just did the grunt work afterwards."

"Look, I have some things to tell you," Cordelia said slowly, thinking of the Guardian of the Slayer line back in Sunnydale. "But that can wait, right now I, I-"

"What, Cordy?" Xander asked curiously.

"Well, there's something else I've been wanting to tell you. Ever since, uh, that night we almost did it during that ballet performance..." Cordelia looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable as she trailed off.

"What?" Harris asked again, dimly recalling that night as well.

"Oh, the hell with this!" Kira finally took over after many moments of hesitant silence from her roommate. She simply grabbed Xander's head and planted a deep, long, passionate kiss on his lips.

After all these years, Harris did not mind the fact that the woman kissing him was half-demon. With all the horrific nightmares that he and Connor had witnessed over the last two decades, the seer currently attempting to suck out his tonsils was practically an angel by comparison; besides, he knew that the Seer had never killed anybody and, too, Harris had fantasized about this very scenario (along with similar ones featuring Anya Jenkins) for well over a decade in order to maintain his sanity.

So almost unconsciously, Xander took the brunette woman in his arms and they kept on making out underneath the moonlight, alone in that courtyard and oblivious to the rest of the world.

Before Miss Chase and the Seer led Xander upstairs to his temporary quarters within the hotel, and the most unusual threesome one could ever possibly imagine finally took place.

***

**Room 215 of the Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles**

**The next day**

Cordelia was asleep, even though Kira wasn't, as the brunette lay naked alongside an equally naked Xander in the bed.

"Last night was incredible," the Seer purred in a deeply satisfied voice to the man beside her. "And I'm talking mind-blowing, earth-shattering, unbelievably great sex here. Once Cordy wakes up, I'm sure she'll tell you the exact same thing!"

Xander smiled softly. He did not regret sleeping with Cordelia last night, although he did find it a bit disturbing that Kira had been present as well for the encounter, experiencing the whole thing first-hand. "Well, it's been over seventeen years for me, after all. Ever since the last time Anya and I..." he trailed off, suddenly looking a bit guilty.

"She's not there in Sunnydale anymore, by the way," Kira told him at once. "Willow said no one knows what's happened to her, she just disappeared one night. Even I don't know what happened to her! Some upper-level demon must be blocking me from seeing it," the Seer told him.

"I'll have to look into that after I go back to Sunnydale," Xander frowned. Then he stared at Kira again. "And, 'upper level demon'?"

"Force of habit," Kira shrugged. "You can take the girl out of the TV show, but not the TV show out of the girl!"

"I suppose. So, what's been happening during this season's episodes of 'Charmed'?" Xander settled down for a bit of harmless pillow talk, his interest suddenly engaged due to Alexander's ancient fictional memories.

"Oh, well, they had some pretty good storylines, for the most part," Kira shrugged again. "The Source got his butt kicked, Phoebe Halliwell got pregnant for a while, and Paige was turned into a vampire during one episode before it got undone. I taped that particular show using my TiVo, actually, and you should have heard what Angel said after he saw it! 'This is ridiculous, who writes this crap?'" The Seer did a pretty good impersonation of the ensouled vampire's gruff voice.

"You have a TiVo?" Xander asked, fighting not to laugh.

"What's going on?" Cordelia said upon finding herself in a strange bed, blinking as she woke up and Kira willingly retreated into the background. Then Miss Chase saw Xander's face inches from her own and said happily, "Oh thank God, it wasn't a dream!" The seer started showering her new lover with hugs and kisses. "I thought I'd lost you forever..."

"Me too. Breakfast?" Xander managed to say with a smile, when he finally managed to tear her away from his lips.

"My treat," Cordelia said, as both man and woman got out of bed and started to get dressed. "Xander, did I happen to mention that I'm rich again now?"

***

**Summers residence, Sunnydale**

**Later that night**

"XANDER?!" Buffy Summers shouted, as she opened the door and saw who was standing on the other side – along with Connor, Angel and Cordelia/Kira. "Oh my God, is that YOU?!"

"Yeah, Buff, it's the one and only Xan-man here-"

However, that was all he managed to get out before Miss Summers began to crush him with a Slayer-strength hug on her doorstep. "How? I mean, when? Oh God, we, we all thought you were dead..."

"The rumors of his death have been greatly exaggerated," Connor said, having partly inherited Xander's sense of humor over the years.

The Slayer let go of her friend and looked at the miracle child inquisitively. "Who are you?"

"I'm Connor. I'm Angel's son," the teen indicated his father standing beside him.

"What? But you're supposed to be..." Buffy trailed off. "Okay, that's it. We're not doing this out here, the neighbors already think everyone who lives in this house is completely crazy!" She led the group into her home.

"It's just like you always described it, Uncle Xander," Connor said in wonder, looking around 1630 Revello Drive. "The staircase, the door to the basement, and – the kitchen's over there in that direction, right?"

"Sure is, kiddo. Tell you what, why don't you go make yourself a sandwich in there? I need to talk to your Aunt Buffy for a while," Xander told the teenager.

"Aunt Buffy?" the Slayer raised her eyebrows. "And 'Uncle Xander'?"

Connor simply obeyed the man who'd raised him without question though, and made his way to the kitchen. But what he wasn't expecting was for the 16-year-old Dawn Summers to be present, helping herself to some Rocky Road ice cream, and as soon as the two teens locked eyes?

Total effing lightning bolt.

Back in the living room, Xander had started his explanation of the situation to his old friend and superheroine, who was looking at him in amazement. "Seventeen years? And, and you're nearly forty now? That's, that's – I can't even think of a word to describe it," Buffy eventually said dazedly. Then she looked at his face. "So. Whitelighter immortality?"

"It certainly helps, since I'm gonna be around just this side of forever as well," the seer said, taking hold of Xander's hand. Angel tried his best to ignore the public display of affection, his feelings still a bit conflicted and confused after Cordelia had told him what had happened last night in LA.

Buffy would have said something about the PDA, but at that moment Willow and Tara came running down the stairs. They had also officially re-entered full relationship status recently, and Miss Maclay was planning to move back into the house soon if that wasn't a problem for Buffy and Dawn. Then both witches skidded to a halt, as they saw just who was downstairs.

"XANDER?!" the two women shouted, and the whole time-consuming explanation deal had to be repeated all over again.

"So where's Dawn and Spike? I figure, may as well get all the explanations out of the way at the same time," Xander asked. He was assuming that the chipped vampire was still associating with the Scoobies in general and Buffy in particular, thanks to his feelings for her.

"Dawn's at her friend Janice's house, they're Thelma and Louise-ing it tonight," Buffy replied, not knowing that Dawn had decided to come home early instead after a fight with her best bud. "Uh, and as for Spike, I don't know where he is. He's, he's not around in Sunnydale anymore," the Chosen One said hesitantly. She suddenly decided never to mention anything to Xander about her former sexual relationship with William the Bloody, because as far as she was concerned, all that was over and done with now. "I don't know whether he's left town or if someone's staked him or whatever, but his crypt is empty and none of us have seen Spike in over two weeks."

"No great loss, if you ask me," Cordelia sniffed as everyone looked at her. "Hey, if it wasn't for that vampire, I would have never gotten stabbed through my stomach with that rebar all those years ago! So I say, good riddance to him."

"Uh, Buffy? Tara and I, we wanted to tell you the latest about Warren," Willow said, wanting to change the subject as those memories were not exactly pleasant ones for her. The Scooby Gang had recently discovered Mears was around and back in the robot-making business, even though they had no idea he had ever worked with the now long-dead Jonathan and Andrew.

"Oh, wait! If you'll excuse us? I'm afraid we have to get going, Xander and I have a prior appointment," Cordelia said, grabbing Harris by the arm.

"We do?" the whitelighter said in confusion, before the Seer and himself shimmered out of the house. She had just foreseen what was coming, and had decided the climate would be more congenial for them elsewhere.

"I better go check on Connor, see what he's up to," Angel said uncomfortably, and so everyone quickly made their way to the kitchen.

Only to find Dawn's lips firmly attached to Connor's as the two teenagers furiously made out in the meal room. And not only that, but the former Key's legs were tightly wrapped around the miracle child's waist as he pressed her against the kitchen wall, where it seemed the young man was ready to start dry-humping his female partner.

"DAWN!" "CONNOR!"

The twin shouts from Buffy and Angel could easily be heard by the neighbors, who just turned up the volume on the TV in annoyance in order not to hear the usual screams and rants from the nutcases next door.

To Be Concluded...


	9. Everything Happens For A Reason

See Part One for Disclaimer and details. Hey everyone, welcome to the final chapter of the story! I just wanted to once again thank everybody who's reviewed and sent feedback, you've helped make this fanfic into one of my most interesting ones ever - seriously, it's much appreciated. Well, time to wrap this one up and move on to other projects, so I hope you enjoy the final episode of "The Guardian"!

***

**Part Nine: Everything Happens For A Reason**

**Pyramid-shaped tomb, Blessed Memories Cemetery, Sunnydale**

**May, 2002**

Almost a month had passed, and things had finally begun to settle down.

Buffy had obviously been very upset about what had happened that night, and Xander had had to have a long talk with both her and the two teenagers in question. In a sense, though, what had happened wasn't all that surprising; Connor had never been exposed to a human girl his own age before, and his repressed hormones had instantly taken over when this flower of womanhood had come within range of his manhood.

Plus, with the two of them being Buffy's sister and Angel's son, and both of them around the same age, genetically speaking, it was practically unavoidable once those two had met one another. Granted, that didn't quell the Slayer's desire to instantly kick Connor out of her house and ground Dawn until she was thirty, but it went a long way in explaining why two strangers had almost instantly started sucking face like that.

After the rather uncomfortable birds and bees talk, Angel and Connor had started to bond, much to Xander's relief. Father and son had a number of things in common; such as good fighting instincts, lousy singing voices, a liking for cookie dough fudge mint chip ice cream, and their taste in Summers women. So Harris slowly but surely withdrew from Connor's day to day life, letting his real father take over the role of parental guardian; he was still there for anything to help the boy adjust to life on Earth, but he let Angel be the person Connor looked to first for anything that needed explaining.

Connor had recently moved to Sunnydale, though, as the male teen had decided that he didn't want to stay in LA. Mostly because his 'Uncle Xander' didn't live there, but also because Dawn didn't live there, either. So Angel had refurbished his old mansion on Crawford Street, and commuted to the Hellmouth as often as he could to visit his offspring.

It was not surprising that Cordy/Kira did the exact same thing, too, in order to visit Xander every night, as they had quickly progressed into a real relationship after Harris had finally given up searching for Anya. And today, after she had judged he was ready, the seer had taken her beloved to meet the Guardian of the Slayer line and hear what she had to say.

Thus, right now Xander was reeling in shock and disbelief, as he stared at the Guardian.

He had listened to the old woman's story, and was still trying to come to grips with the enormity of what he'd heard – and what he had helped do over seven months ago local time, when Buffy Summers had been resurrected from the dead.

"So what does all this mean, bottom line?" he asked slowly.

"You and the others really screwed up, sweetheart," Cordelia said to her boyfriend apologetically.

"And now, we've just about run out of time," Kira added.

"No, it's worse than that. The First Evil must have learned that the forces protecting the Slayer line have been compromised by now, it must have already have begun massing its armies to attack and destroy all the Potentials and the Chosen Two," the Guardian said helplessly. "We're doomed, unless you can somehow fix the damage before that happens."

"How?" the whitelighter demanded.

"By doing what you do best," Cordelia told him.

"Only a whitelighter in the astral plane can repair and realign the cosmic forces which used to protect the Slayer line," Kira added. "But it's not something that can be done easily or quickly, Xander. And you were still in your denial phase about what you really are, before ending up in Quor-toth. That's why we convinced Cordelia not to say anything about this to you before now; you simply weren't ready for the job, you didn't have the power or the right attitude to do it."

"I see," Harris scowled at the woman he had accepted into his heart and his bed. Still, he suspected that the Seer was right; his powers had been virtually non-existent back then. "So what..."

Xander's ears were almost blasted apart from the strength of the whitelighter jingle, and he orbed out without finishing his sentence. Frowning, Kira followed him, and both supernatural beings arrived in Buffy's backyard where the Slayer lay dying of a gunshot wound to the chest.

This was thanks to Warren Mears, as his plans had been foiled the previous evening by the Slayer, the ensouled vampire and the miracle child who had taken out the Buffy-bot and the Xander-bot in addition to stopping the trio's bank heist. Mears himself had managed to flee with a rocket pack last night, but had come around today to get his revenge on Buffy the only way he knew how.

Xander quickly healed Buffy's wound, while Kira looked around at the fleeing Warren. One energy ball later, and the villain was unconscious on the ground. The Seer knew she could and probably should have killed this human piece of excrement, but there was no way she was ever going to risk her relationship with Xander over the likes of him.

Harris suddenly looked up, hearing Willow's voice screaming from the upstairs bedroom. He orbed into the house and found Miss Rosenberg cradling Miss Maclay's body. ( _Oh, crap..._ )

"Tara? Baby? Sweetie, come on, wake up!" the redhead sobbed. Then Willow saw her oldest friend, and hope instantly blossomed in her heart. "Xander! Please, hurry, you gotta heal her!"

Harris tried, but it was too late. "I can't heal the dead!"

"NOOOO!!!!!" Willow instantly screamed in agony and rage at the injustice of it all.

"But, but there might be something else I can do though – Willow, stand back!" Xander got up and moved away from the witches, suddenly making another decision.

"What? I, I can't, I can't just leave her..." Willow protested, momentarily more confused than hurt and angry.

"It could already be too late!! Willow, for God's sake, if you ever even once trusted me, MOVE!!" Xander screamed at her, his body starting to glow with that heavenly golden color.

Luckily, the bonds of friendship between these two stretched all the way back to almost the cradle itself, and so Willow obeyed without another word. Xander had ceased to notice by this point, though: he was concentrating on remembering something that had never actually happened.

Namely how Alexander had been recruited into the ranks of the whitelighter corps, thanks to the memories provided by that Halloween chaos magic – back when all this had really begun.

Just like on the 'Charmed' episode when Leo Wyatt had explained his origins to Piper Halliwell, Miss Maclay's soul started floating in white light, wondering what to do. The choice was upon her...

In an instant, Tara made her decision without regrets or second thoughts.

Just like when Xander had been transformed by the chaos magicks, a blue light started to shine down upon Tara's body as the corpse was transformed into those beautiful shining white orb lights, causing Willow to gasp in astonishment. The blue light grew more intense, as Kira shimmered in and her own eyes went wide. As the becoming ritual began to draw to a close, the white orb lights morphed back into Tara's human form, having received all that was necessary for the new whitelighter to exist and then the blue light simply vanished.

"Tara? Tara?" Willow whispered in disbelief as the female guardian angel got up off the floor, just as Xander sagged and Cordelia caught him before he fell down. "Tara?"

"Willow," the whitelighter said in wonder, staring at her soul mate. "I, I couldn't leave you..."

"TARA!!" Willow screamed in pure joy, throwing herself at her beloved and kissing the hell out of her.

Xander finally straightened up as the witch and the new whitelighter turned to look at him. "Oh God, Xander, thank you!" Willow exclaimed, tears of joy streaming down her cheeks, still holding Tara as tightly as she could.

"No. It wasn't me," Xander said slowly, looking upwards with a peculiar expression on his face. "I mean I tried, but I just didn't have the power to create another whitelighter – I'm not an Elder. Someone up there must have done it – for their own reasons," he cogitated slowly.

"Like who? Osiris? I kinda doubt he – hey, what's wrong?" Willow blurted out, seeing Xander's expression change.

"Something's wrong, I don't know what but I can sense it. And I don't know why, but I've gotta go. Right now," Harris said strangely, feeling like the poles of destiny were finally about to come together somehow. "Oh, I'm getting some really wiggy vibes here – uh, just in case? Tell everyone goodbye for me, especially Connor..."

"What are you talking about?" Tara wanted to know. "Xander, you can't just leave, there's so much you have to teach me-!"

"You'll just have to figure it all out on your own somehow, the same way I did," the man said hurriedly. "Sorry, but I really have to take off!"

"Not without me, you're not!" Cordelia said determinedly, as the Seer followed the orb trail of their beloved as best she could.

***

**The Astral Plane**

**A moment later**

It takes a special amount of concentration for a whitelighter to exist self-aware within the in-between dimension known as the astral plane. Similar to the astral plane on 'Charmed', it was a place where physical form meant little: here, there wasn't actually any difference between the biggest galaxy and the smallest pebble.

The astral plane was a spiritual rather than physical one. It existed without borders and boundaries, and as such it was a place for spirits and demons, and even a place for the gods themselves. It was a place where a person, even a whitelighter, was only as strong as his own thoughts. That was why Skip had found it so easy to manipulate Cordelia here, creating that fake mall and everything else to lull her into a false sense of trust and complacency.

As Xander materialized, he saw the astral plane as it truly was and focused on a spinning white disc not far away, in the center of which there appeared to be six interlocking coils. These 'cables' were in colors that held no meaning to the human eye, but that wasn't important. What mattered was how they twisted and undulated chaotically within the astral plane. They spun and whirled aimlessly, obviously damaged in some way.

Harris somehow knew what to do, as he tried to 'heal' them. Slowly, ever so slowly, the 'cables' symbolically representing the mystical forces which used to protect the Slayer line began to stop moving like snakes upon the Gorgon's head. Moving with painstaking deliberation, the whitelighter began to untangle them, smoothing them out and restoring them to what they had once been.

One down.

Metaphorical sweat began to build on Xander's brow, as he kept at it.

Two down.

The stress of the job began to eat away at his concentration, as Xander started struggling to maintain his focus.

Three down. Halfway there.

Bits and pieces of Xander's "body" began to flicker in and out of existence, as the man forced himself to keep going with his appointed task.

Four down.

The flickering effect was getting worse, as the whitelighter drew on reserves of strength which he didn't know he had – as the Seer and Cordelia finally materialized on the astral plane as well, radiating everything they felt about this man in order to assist him. Hope, desire, faith and love.

Five down.

Unfortunately though, that was when the First Evil showed up.

Enraged that someone was attempting to short-circuit its plans for extinguishing the Slayer line, the ancient evil entity came swarming in as a huge, horned, red-eyed monster. It began battering the whitelighter and his half-demon companion with its tremendous powers, not exactly impotent within this plane. The First attempted to feed on their life-force and destroy them both forever, quickly distracting the guardian angel from finishing his job.

But as Whistler had once said, it was all about balance – and so, the god of chaos named Janus arrived on the scene, attracting the First's attention by doing the mystical equivalent of pinching it on the rear. Roaring at the insult, the First attempted to tear Janus in half – but it failed to do so, of course, thanks to the Roman god's divine nature.

Too late, the First Evil realized its mistake and turned its attention back to its primary target – just as Xander finished healing the last of the mystical forces, and Janus began to fade away.

***

**Sunnydale, California**

**The same time**

"What the hell?" Buffy said as she fell down gasping, all her Slayer powers gone in an instant after Xander had finished his rushed repair job.

Not far away, a portal opened up in an alley near a demon restaurant and Anya Jenkins finally arrived home with her new boyfriend – Stewart Burns nothing but a dismembered corpse and bad memory at last.

***

**Stockton, California**

**The same time**

Faith Lehane, prisoner number 430019 of the California state penal code, suddenly stopped exercising in the prison yard. She somehow felt – different. Stronger. More complete, so to speak.

The one girl in all the world again, finally.

***

**The Astral Plane**

**A moment later**

Janus watched in amusement as the essences of the whitelighter and the seer were torn apart by the furious and rampaging First Evil. Hearing a request from the Powers That Be, it subsequently granted the favor before vanishing completely out of the astral plane.

***

**Sunnydale, California**

**The same time**

A white light started racing all along Angel's body, as the vampire collapsed with a strangled cry. "Uhhhh!"

"Dad?" Connor asked worriedly, reaching down to help his father up.

Angel started gasping for air, and could suddenly feel an oddly familiar thumping in his chest. His nose felt like it was completely blocked, unable to perceive now what it had been capable of a mere moment ago.

The former vampire knew these feelings, having experienced them once before thanks to being infected with the blood of a Mohra demon.

"I'm alive!"

***

**Marseilles, France**

**The same time**

The half-insane Spike, wandering around in the underground tunnels of the city and babbling nonsense to himself, suddenly had a burst of lucidity and knew it was time to go back to Sunnydale.

Time to go back to HER, soul and all.

***

**Empty Alley, San Francisco**

**A while later**

The first thing Xander knew was pain.

The next thing he knew was that he was laying on the ground, and that there was someone laying right beside him.

The third thing he knew was that a man dressed in 1970's clothing was standing over them both, and looking down upon both him and his companion with an indefinable expression on his face.

"Ugh, I feel worse than I did that time when the Source almost beat me to death," the Seer muttered, as she slowly got up and helped Xander do the same.

"Kira? Cordelia?" Xander asked, staring at her intensely.

"Right here, doofus," Miss Chase replied, before turning to face Whistler. "What are YOU doing here?"

"Good to see you again, too," the balance demon said sarcastically. "Now how's about we get down to business?"

"Whistler, isn't it? I remember you – vaguely," Harris said, struggling to recall that meeting which had been nearly two decades ago for him. "And what business are you talking about?" Xander asked.

"Well, kid, lemme tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was this hapless young geek who somehow managed to stumble his way into a really impressive destiny. His ex-girlfriend, whose original destiny happened to suck beyond the telling of it, she somehow managed to stumble her way back into his arms as did her pretty unique roommate. So they all went into Aladdin's cave and managed to save the world, even if no one but a pretty crotchety old broad hiding in a pyramid will ever know that." The demon asked, "How am I doin' so far?"

"Not bad, but it needs a bit more focus on the exotic and incredibly desirable roommate," Kira smirked at Whistler.

The demon shrugged and said, "Okay, how's this? Said roommate is now unofficially unemployed. One, because her vampire boss has finally received his shanshu from the Powers, and two – she's dead in that world. Just like the former cheerleader and former geek."

"What are you talking about?" Cordelia demanded.

"Wait, I'm starting to remember," Xander said uncertainly. "That thing which attacked us on the astral plane..."

"...was the First Evil. Otherwise known as the First," Whistler nodded. "Hate to tell you this, pal, but it killed you as well as your girlfriend here. Or should that be girlfriends? Either way I'm sure Jerry Springer would have had himself a real good time with you guys on his show, any day of the week," the balance demon shook his head.

"So if we're dead, then where are we? This doesn't look like Heaven to me," Cordelia said, looking around the empty alley with its overloaded trash bins. "And I'm sure Hell would have better garbage collection facilities."

"Clever," Whistler deadpanned before turning to face Xander. "Tell me something, Harris. Do you remember what the Englishman said to you about that invisible girl who tried to kill the Prom queen here, a few years ago? Why she actually dropped out of sight and out of mind, I mean?"

Xander ignored Cordelia's glare at the messenger for the Powers and said, "No. Sorry, but all that's just too long ago now."

"Well, he said, and I quote, 'Physics. It's a rudimentary concept that, that reality is shaped, even, even – created by our perception'," the demon said in an excellent imitation of Rupert's voice.

"Still not getting what that has to do with where we are now," Kira looked around again.

"And you call yourself a seer, Seer? Come on, try hard. Both of you," Whistler looked at both the male and female standing before him. "Don't tell me you can't recognize this place?"

Both Xander and Kira gasped. "This is impossible!" Harris said wildly, looking up and his eyes wide.

"How the-? This is San Francisco. The San Francisco from 'Charmed'," Kira suddenly looked very afraid, able to sense the Underworld almost directly beneath her feet. "How did we get HERE?"

"Like I said, physics. Quantum mechanics. Did you know just how many people in America and around the world watch that show, and of those – how many idiots actually believe it's real?" Again the demon shook his head. "Enough for that guy Janus and the Powers to use it to create this little pocket universe for you to be resurrected and live out the rest of your lives, anyway."

"And what if we decide not to stay here?" Xander stared Whistler directly in the eye.

"That's your choice. But if you do manage to force your way back to the world you came from, well, as I said – you're dead there," Whistler explained. "So you're automatically gonna go either upstairs or downstairs, depending on the soul factor, and most of important of all..." he pointed at the brunette woman's belly, "...your unborn daughter is never gonna get a chance at life. So I'd advise you to think about it VERY carefully, before you do something you'll later regret."

The balance demon vanished as Xander struggled to comprehend what he'd just heard. He couldn't handle thinking about the last piece of information Whistler had provided and so he said, "This is the 'Charmed' universe – oh my God, the Elders are here. And so are the Cleaners! And the Angel of Death, the Angel of Destiny, not to mention the Source of All Evil..."

"Xander!" Harris was distracted by the busty brunette happily throwing herself into his arms. "Didn't you hear what he just said? We're gonna have a BABY!" Both the human and the demon kissed him passionately and ferociously, experiencing something approaching perfect happiness.

"A baby," Xander shook his head, once the woman let him go. "I-I just spent the last seventeen years raising Connor – and now I've got to do it all over again with our daughter?"

"Oh, stop complaining!" Cordelia slapped him affectionately. "Now, come on, we've got a lot of work to do. First thing's first, we need to find ourselves an apartment – or better yet, a house. One big enough to hold a decent-sized nursery."

"Actually? We need to do the whole fake ID thing first, and gather together enough money to be able to live underneath the radar," Kira interrupted. "Both that of the Source, and the Elders. After all, we can't trust either one of them."

The next moment, Xander heard the jingling in his ears. "Too late. They've already sensed me," the foreign whitelighter said, looking upwards. "The Elders want to talk to us right away, on account of they're very confused – they know what I am, but they don't know WHO I am..."

"All right, fine. Let's just get this over with," Cordelia said, throwing her arms around her future husband. "And I swear, if they give me any attitude up there? Those TV chowderheads are really gonna regret it!"

"Personally, I'm sure they already do," Kira snarked.

A moment later, the white orb lights vanished upwards towards the sky.

***

**Soccer Park, San Francisco**

**May, 2008**

Piper Halliwell and her younger sister Phoebe were talking and watching Piper's son, the twice-blessed child Wyatt Matthew Halliwell, play midfield for his school soccer team.

"So, how are things going with you?" the oldest Charmed One asked her sibling.

"Pretty good," the seer and newspaper columnist replied with a grin. "Coop and I are thinking of starting a family..."

"Well, it's about time!" Piper declared, then cheered her son loudly as Wyatt scored a goal for his team. Then she looked around to look for her second-born. "Chris? Chris, where are you?"

The Charmed One looked and saw her son talking to a cute little five-year-old girl not far away. As she got closer Piper heard the girl say to her little boy, "The home team is gonna win 3-1, see, but my mommy told me never to just say it out loud like that. She says Daddy wants to watch sports without knowing what's gonna happen – unless he bets on the game."

"Is your mommy a witch?" Chris Halliwell looked at her with absolute fascination, even as Piper frowned at what she was hearing.

"No, but my daddy's a real-life angel," the little girl confessed, eliciting a gasp from Piper nearby. "I'm K.C."

"I'm Chris," the Halliwell boy replied, already a charmer even at four years old.

"K.C.? I thought I told you not to just run off like that!" the girl's mother – a seamless blend of Cordelia and Kira Harris, after all these years – came over and scolded her daughter.

"But mommy, I had to! Chris was here, and I had to meet him 'cause I couldn't 'see' him at all," the little girl told her mother innocently, before spying Piper nearby.

"What do you mean, you couldn't 'see' him, sweetie?" Piper asked the little girl. She had already guessed part of it as Phoebe was the seer member of the Charmed Ones, and the oldest sister thus both knew the jargon and was concerned about her son.

"Nothing, really. I mean kids, huh?" Xander's wife smiled at Piper in a strained way, cursing the fact that the gift of sight had been passed down to her daughter and that she'd had to meet Piper this way.

An expert at this sort of thing, the brunette had already figured out that Chris was the first person K.C. couldn't read because she wasn't supposed to. Cordy/Kira knew she had never really been able to see Xander's future because it had meant seeing her own with him; and K.C. seeing Chris's future would likewise be seeing hers with the man she was destined to end up with, thus the little girl couldn't do it at this point in her life.

( _Well, I guess there are worse people we could end up being related to,_ ) the dark-haired seer mused to herself. ( _And at least with the Charmed Ones, there won't be any need to pretend that our family is something it's not._ )

"Hi, I'm Piper Halliwell. Say, why don't you and your daughter come home with me and my kids for a play-date once this game's over? I'm sure we'll have a LOT to talk to about," Piper said archly to her future in-law, as K.C. ran to her mother's arms.

"Bring your husband along too, if he's here. For some reason, I kinda get the feeling he and my husband Leo will have a lot in common," Piper added.

And thus was born the start of a whole new generation of magical adventure and excitement.

The End


End file.
